Alone in a Crowd
by The Lord of Silence
Summary: Eltelm is a German player who understands only a few words of Japanese or English. Not that he cared much when a started playing SAO. But when the game becomes a death trap, he'll have to care, as he becomes isolated by the language barrier. He may be a talented warrior, but even if his body survives can his mind live through becoming the Lonely Blade?
1. Foreword

Foreword

Okay then so, I've written one arc on this site so far (still ongoing) and I've really enjoyed the experience thus far, so I figure: why not do a second one? SAO is an anime I personally enjoyed watching a lot, though I did feel that it went downhill towards the end of season 1 with the Alfheim arc. I'm one of those people who would have preferred it if (spoiler alert) they'd gone all the way to Floor 100 rather than having Heathcliff's identity exposed and the game cut short at Floor 75. So of course that's what I'll be doing in my own story.

The concept for the story is that a player is trapped inside of SAO (of course) but can't communicate with anybody in the game. Why? Because he understands only a few words from either Japanese or English, which are the two primary languages spoken in the game. On top of that most of the in-game writing is in Japanese which makes things even more difficult for our hero. Be warned, if you have come here looking for a story where the main character gets an easy happy ending, prepare to be sorely disappointed. One of the big themes of this story is isolation, whether voluntary or involuntary so it does eventually get pretty gloomy. But don't worry, things will all (sort of) work out in the end. Maybe.

Anyway, I'm sure you're sick of reading my terrible Foreword, so please, click the next button and enjoy the story.

The Lord of Silence

PS Please excuse my terrible attempts at using German and Japanese words. In some cases characters are meant to be saying it wrong, but in others well, that's just because I don't actually speak the language very well myself and am using translation software for the most part. So if you do speak Japanese or German, feel free to point out any errors in a polite manner, and I'll see if I can fix them.


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Link Start

He handled the device almost reverently in his anticipation. He'd already set everything up and now he was just waiting for the time to tick over. It was only two more minutes until the launch. Irritably he got up and paced around his hotel room several times. "Oh come on," he muttered to himself, "You've been waiting for this game for well over a year now, surely you can wait a few more minutes?"

That didn't help him though. Every since the first leaks that a full VRMMORPG was in development he'd poured over every scrap of evidence. Sword Art Online had stopped being an interest, by this point it was an obsession. He admitted that at times he hated his burning desire. At other all he could admit was excitement. Even the realisation that the entire game would be in Japanese-a language he didn't speak a word of-hadn't blunted his enthusiasm. He'd done his best to learn as much of the language as he could in the last two months, but he hadn't gotten very far. Certainly not far enough to be able to read the in game menus. While that did worry him a little bit, he reckoned he could guess at what each button did fairly well, and besides; he could always work it out through experimentation.

Now, at last it was time. He scrabbled with the Nerve-Gear helmet, jamming it down on his head in a rush. Calming his breathing he lay down on the bed and closed his eyes. "Link start!" he more or less shouted in his excitement. Even though he knew his eyes were closed he could suddenly see. There was a massive cascade of colours as the visual system calibrated itself. The Nerve Gear rapidly connected itself to the server and asked him what language he wanted the game in. He laughed to himself at that; there was only one language in the list.

Then a large board appeared in front of him. Flustered he tried to remember what little written Japanese he'd learned and guessed-rightly-that he was supposed to enter his character name. Eltelm, was typed in without a moment's hesitation. Then he was presented with a visual display with a face. After spending several minutes figuring out what all of the individual buttons did, he customised his character with long raven hair that went down to his shoulders, light skin with high cheek bones and deep blue eyes. In short, it was an elf. Well, an elf bar the clearly human ears.

With his character customisation complete he tapped on the button that from the green circle he guessed meant proceed. There were several messages of text in front of his eyes for a few minutes, which he guessed were telling him that the game was loading or calibrating or whatever. Then there was a flash and he was standing in the opening area. The ground was covered in stone tiles and he was on a raised platform. A series of words appeared on his screen for a moment before fading away. He hadn't the faintest idea how to read them but he guessed they were telling him which floor he was on. Floor 1, in the Town of Beginnings.

He looked around at the sky, and at the groups of people milling around excitedly. Feeling at his belt his hand closed around the hilt of a sword. He drew the blade slowly and reverently before slipping comfortably into a middle guard. It felt so real! It was heavier than a real sword ought to be for sure, but that didn't take him much by surprise. After all this was a fantasy game so unrealistic elements were to be expected. _"Like drawing from the back,"_ he thought to himself with a smile as he saw another equally excited player do just that.

He made a few practice sweeps with his blade, striking each of the major points in quick succession. It might be a little clumsier than he was used to, but it still felt like a real sword. "This," he said to himself, "this is the best moment of my life!"

 _"This is the worst moment of my life!"_ thought Lee as all around him people spoke frantically and some screamed in panic. "This is not happening, this is not happening, this is not happening!" he hissed to himself. Try as he might to convince himself to the contrary, this most certainly was happening. There was no logout button, and the Nerve-Gear was rigged up to fry their brains if they tried to escape. There was no way out of this game that had just become a death trap. _"Calm down and think,"_ he told himself. _"If the only way out is to beat the game then surely all I have to do is survive until one of the people here who's really good at the game does just that. But, but what if none of them can? What if none of them want to take the risk of being killed?"_

"Excuse me," said a polite voice off to his left. Lee looked up in surprise. A boy of about fourteen with short trimmed blonde hair and blue-grey eyes was looking at him with a clear light of confusion. "I don't understand Japanese," he said, his voice unsure as he spoke. "I don't understand," he said again, gesturing towards where the massive cloaked figure had been a minute or so before.

"English?" asked Lee. He found that he was surprisingly calm all of a sudden. He supposed that was because he felt he was on familiar ground. This wasn't the first time he'd had to explain a situation to someone who couldn't speak his native language.

"No," said the boy, shaking his head. "Deutsche."

That prompted a raised eyebrow. Lee had never dealt with someone who spoke German before, usually they were English speaking tourists. "Nein sprechen Deutsche," said Lee. He more or less sure that meant 'I don't speak German.'

The boy's face fell. "I don't understand," he said again, gesturing at all of the people in panic around him. "Wrong?" he asked.

"Yes." Clearly unable to ask 'what' the boy simply stood with a questioning look. Lee sighed and taking the boy by the hand led him out of the main plaza. Once they were away from all of the noise Lee bent down and began to draw in the dirt. The boy watched closely. First off all Lee drew a person sitting down with a helmet on their head. "Nerve-Gear," he explained, pointing to the helmet. The boy nodded.

"I understand," he said.

Lee made a motion as if taking the helmet off. He then shook his head and said "no."

The boy frowned. "Why?" he asked in English.

"You," said Lee in Japanese, pointing at the boy, "die." As he said die he drew his finger across his throat and made a sound as if he was having his throat cut.

The boy looked at him very grimly. "No, ha ha," he said, to imply that he didn't think this was very funny.

"No ha ha," agreed Lee. He then pointed to where he knew the boy would be able to see his own health bar, and then made a show of compressing his hands together to imply it running out. "You die," he said simply, performing the same throat cutting action as before.

The boy's eyes widened. He shook his head frantically. "No, no," he said, "unmöglich!"

"Unmöglich?" Lee asked. The boy hesitated a moment, then bent down and drew an infinity sign in the dirt before pointing to it and shaking his head. Lee guessed that meant 'impossible' or 'that could never happen' or something along those lines. "True," said Lee firmly. The boy starred at him blankly. "True," Lee tried again, this time in English. The boy's face showed understanding, but clearly not acceptance.

"Why?" he asked again.

Lee shrugged. "I don't know," he said. Holding up a hand for quiet he drew a series of lines in the dirt, writing the number one underneath the first one and one hundred on top of the last. He circled it, hoping the boy could understand that he meant floor one hundred. His expression showed limited comprehension, so that was good enough. Lee opened his menu and pointed to the greyed out logout button. He then gave a thumbs up to indicate functionality. The boy nodded slowly.

He bent down and drew two pictures of his own in the dirt. The first was of a podium with the number one on it, to indicate victory. The other was of an open door. Lee nodded. If they could beat the last boss on the hundredth floor then they'd be able to logout and escape.

The boy looked very grim at that. "True?" he asked very seriously.

"True," said Lee, just as seriously.

"Thank you," said the boy, pushing himself to his feet and looking around him at the landscape, tinted red with the setting sun. He pointed to himself, "Eltelm," he said.

Lee nodded and pointed to himself, "Lee." He offered his hand to shake and Eltelm took it. "Will you be safe?" he asked, pointing to him and making a shield sign in the air in front of him.

Eltelm stepped back and drew his sword. It was a two handed weapon, but like all of the starting blades it was very simple; just plain steel. The blonde promptly proceeded to perform a series of rapid cuts in the air in front of him, followed by several stabbing and thrusting motions. "Swords IRL," explained Eltelm.

Lee's eyes widened. "True?" he asked incredulously.

"Yes," said Eltelm with a smile, sheathing his weapon, "I will you be safe."

"I will be safe," corrected Lee.

"Yes," agreed Eltelm. "Thank you Lee-San," he said with a slight bow. "Goodbye." Then he turned and strode away into the gathering dark.

Lee watched him go worriedly. He wouldn't be able to buy from shops, join guilds or parties, use sword skills, he wouldn't even know how to access his inventory. Some of that he'd be able to figure out through tampering, but not everything. _"He'll be alone,"_ he thought to himself. _"He won't have anybody to talk to and no one to ask for advice. It won't matter how many people are nearby he'll be isolated. How is he going to survive in this world?"_

Eltelm bit his lip nervously as he walked away into the dark. "If he's really telling the truth, then I'm stuck here," he said to himself. "I'd planned to only use the game for a few days before heading back home where I'd arrange for some translation software to be built in. Now that'll never happen. I'm going to be stuck in a world where I can't communicate with anybody else. Oh well, I usually play MMORPGs solo, so why should this one be any different right?" he asked nobody in particular.

Suddenly he became angry and savagely kicked the side of a stall just next to him. A red hexagon flashed in the air briefly. His failure to understand the words only made Eltelm even angrier. Furiously he opened the in-game menu and stabbed viscously at the logout button. Try as he might nothing would happen. He dismissed the menu and slumped down on the ground between two stalls.

He sat there like that for several minutes. Finally he pushed himself to his feet and looked up at the sky. The stars had begun to come out now and the view was breathtaking. The constellations were all different and instead of the usual single band of the Milky Way, there was a kind of x shape in sky caused by two intersecting bands of stars.

Eltelm turned in the road to look down the street and out of the town. "Well then," he hissed to himself, "since this is an MMORPG, I'd better start farming." Drawing his blade he set off into the open fields of Floor 1.

Two minutes later as the wolf exploded into brightly glowing shards Eltelm let out a yell and stabbed his sword into the dirt. _"You're going to be alone."_ "I don't need a companion." _"You're going to be trapped here."_ "I know how to escape." _"You're going to be in danger."_ "I'm strong enough to survive!"

"Ich bin stark genug, um zu überleben!" screamed a voice.

Kirito looked back over his shoulder in surprise. _"That sounded German,"_ he thought to himself. He pondered turning around and going to investigate but shrugged it off. _"There isn't time. I need to cover as much ground as I can as early as I can. Whoever it is will have to manage on their own."_


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Good Samaritan

Max Floor: 1 Level: 5

The goblin slashed down with its blade and Eltelm easily caught the swing on his guard. Twisting he pulled the green skinned creature's jagged sword down so that the point was against the stone floor. Quickly he pulled loose and slashed the monster across the face. Before the goblin could try to recover, Eltelm thrust his sword point deep into its chest. It stood still for a moment and then exploded into the usual bright, glass-like fragments.

A small pop-up announced the new items, but of course Eltelm had no idea what they were. He'd find out when he performed his inventory in an hour's time. With no other monsters in sight he sheathed his sword and pulled his hood back down over his face. It wasn't that he wanted to appear sinister, but it made it easier if people felt uninclined to talk to him in the first place.

With a sigh Eltelm started off again. He clutched at his stomach in frustration as it growled yet again. The death game began two and a half weeks ago and Eltelm had yet to eat a thing. He knew that his real body was being kept alive by artificial means, but that didn't stop him from being hungry. Without access to any stores he was unable to buy food, so all he had access to was raw meats that some of the monsters dropped. This of course was useless to him as he needed a cooking score of five or higher to prepare even the most basic dropped items, and his was only level one.

This meant that he'd had to ignore his hunger for the better part of three weeks as best he could. He didn't feel any weaker thanks to the digital environment, but the pain in his stomach was constant and drove him mad.

Coming out of the woods he looked out over the wide flat grass lands that lay between him and the next village. At a guess he'd say it was a good hour's walk to reach it, two hours with all of the monsters he'd have to stop to kill. To his surprise he saw a group of people sitting around on the grass talking to each other and laughing. _"Are they NPCs?"_ Eltelm wondered. They couldn't be NPCs because they had the usual green crystal floating above their heads. _"What are they so happy about?"_

One of the players looked up and noticed him. "Nē! Zehi, go sanka!" she called cheerfully.

Eltelm stared blankly at her, "gomen'nasai! Watashi Nihongo wakarimasen!" That was meant to be, 'Sorry. I don't understand Japanese.' That was something Eltelm had had to say all too often lately.

The player-a young woman in her early twenties with light brown hair-looked surprised. "English?" she asked.

"Īe. Deutsche."

The woman looked even more taken aback at that. Still, she smiled and beckoned to him. Curious, Eltelm walked over. He made sure to keep his sword hilt easily accessible, but tried not to look to menacing. He was surprised to see that the group appeared to be having a picnic. There was a man in his fifties with greying black hair, two preteen boys of around eleven that were clearly twins and a woman in her late forties with faded blonde hair. Eltelm realised they were a family.

The older woman smiled and motioned for him to sit down. "Arigato," said Eltelm and did so. The man said something in Japanese prompting Eltelm to look in his direction. He was holding out a loaf of bread.

Eltelm's eyes widened and he eagerly accepted it. "Thank you, thank you so much!" he said excitedly, completely forgetting that since he was speaking in German they wouldn't have a clue what he was saying. "I haven't eaten since I came here," he gasped, before eagerly biting off a large piece of bread. It tasted better than anything he'd had in his entire life. The older woman looked at him with a kind smile while he ate.

One of the two boys said something in Japanese that seemed to be addressed to him, but all Eltelm could do was stare back at him blankly. The young woman quickly replied to the young boy, presumably explaining the language barrier between them. The boy frowned but nodded understandingly. "Thank you very much for this," Eltelm said again, hoping that he could convey his gratitude through his tone of voice if not through his words themselves.

The older woman smiled and nodded. After thinking hard for a moment, Eltelm spoke up. "Family?" he asked in Japanese, gesturing to the seated group. The older man and woman nodded but the young woman shook her head. _"So, she's not related to them, but they're all related to each other."_ "I understand," he said, nodding.

"Arigato," he said again, standing up to leave. He wished he could give them something in return, but he didn't know how the trading system worked. Recognising his intention, the younger woman waved for him to sit down. Eltelm shook his head and pointed towards the next village and then to himself. The woman looked disappointed but nodded. Eltelm bowed, and then headed back towards the path.

He smiled to himself as walked. The hunger inhibitors had started working already and the gnawing pain in his stomach was gone. Admittedly that wouldn't last for more than a few hours but still, you couldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. Still, the sight of the family all sitting and talking together stirred up the memories of his own family. In less than a second his mood became gloomy.

How much must they be worrying about him? Odds are his body was lying in a hospital bed in Tokyo. His parents would probably come to see him but they wouldn't have the money to stay in the country for long. He had promised his little brother that he'd let him use the game when he got back. He'd been so excited at the time, how glad he must be now that it wasn't him inside of this death trap.

Eltelm sighed and shook his head. _"Thinking about your family is only going to make you feel sad. Feeling sad only makes it more likely that you'll end up dead. I've already decided that I'm not going to die here."_ Heaving a long breath of frustration, Eltelm drew his sword and stepped off of the path and began making his way towards where a pair of boars were nosing around in the dirt. He was already level five by this point, so such low level monsters weren't a challenge. They worked well as a way to work of anger though.

He snatched up a rock and pelted it at the first animal's head. The throw itself took off around half of its health, and provoked both it and its companion to charge. Eltelm neatly side stepped the first boar and slashed down the side of the second. Both animals turned back to face him before attacking again.

Eltelm rammed the point of the sword straight into the head of the first enemy, causing it to burst into glowing shards. The second butted him with its head. He skidded along the ground for a second as his health bar fell slightly. Then with a shout he dived forwards and cut the creature twice, once across each shoulder. It stood still for a moment, trembled slightly and then exploded.

Eltelm huffed and sheathed his sword. "Great," he muttered, "now look what you've gone and done; waste of health."

A sudden noise from somewhere behind him prompted him to turn around. Something of a commotion appeared to have been kicked up further back on the plain. Eltelm frowned. Five players with drawn swords were surrounding something and blocking it from view. _"Hold on, isn't that where..."_ Eltelm's eyes widened as the visuals clicked in his brain.

Hastily he sprinted towards the small gathering. One of the armed players turned around as he approached. "Kore wa anata to wa nani no kankei mo arimasen," he said, "Saru."

Eltelm frowned. "I don't speak Japanese," he said.

The man frowned at that. He pointed at Eltelm, and then away into the distance. "Saru," he said again.

"You want me to leave? Not yet; what are you people doing?" The man waited for a few moments, and when it became clear that Eltelm wasn't going to leave he pointed his sword at him. "You sure you want to do that?" Eltelm asked, putting his hand over the hilt of his own weapon. He peered over the man's shoulder. Behind him the group he'd seen earlier were being held at sword point by the other four. "You're robbing them?!"

"Kore ga saigo no chansudesu, saru," said the man.

"No," said Eltelm in Japanese. He drew his sword and slipped comfortably into a high guard. Judging for this guy's positioning he wasn't protecting his head very well, that could be used to Eltelm's advantage.

The man scowled and rushed forwards with a yell. Eltelm side stepped to the left and took his opponent's sword on an angle. He quickly struck him across the fingers causing him to cry out and drop his weapon. The pain blockers had been deactivated two weeks ago. Eltelm delivered a quick slash across the man's chest. He then proceeded to ram the pommel of his sword into his face, causing him to fall backwards with his hands clasped over the area.

He crawled away hastily, calling something out to the rest of his group. "Who's next then?" asked Eltelm, raising his blade. The dark green hooded cloak that he wore combined with his confident stance made him look particularly frightening. The four robbers all looked at each other a little uncertainly. One said something to the others, his voice exasperated. He pointed his sword at Eltelm and growled something in a low voice. The other three were apparently encouraged and edged forwards.

Eltelm swallowed nervously. He could probably take any of them one-on-one, he knew how to use a sword and they didn't. Most people were still trying those over the top moves you saw in movies, or just hacking wildly. But four opponents at once? Those were odds he didn't care for. _"Oh well, you're in over your head now. They may be thieves but they won't kill me, so I suppose there's that." "You're already thinking like you've lost this fight. Are you scared?" "Shut up!" "I thought you were going to beat this world? That you were strong enough to survive." "I am!" "Then fight you stupid brat!"_

"Raagh!" he screamed, rushing forwards. He took the group completely by surprise, and barreled into the one just ahead of him. He rammed his knee into his groin and drew his blade across the man's throat. Shoving the enemy backwards Eltelm turned to his right and attacked the next opponent, the one who had urged his companions into the attack.

Eltelm struck out again and again, sending out a series of rapid strikes. The robber deflected the first and the second, but the third one slipped through, nicking his left shoulder. Before he could respond properly Eltelm had made a draw cut across his shoulder and down onto his chest. He staggered away, grasping at the glowing red line.

Eltelm rounded on the last two enemies, taking several steps backwards to make sure that none of his wounded foes could stab him in the back. He raised his blade and it flashed in the sunlight. "Do you two feel like trying your luck?" he hissed. Even though they couldn't understand him, the last two would-be thieves exchanged nervous glances.

The already defeated antagonist (most likely their leader) called out something angrily in their direction. All Eltelm was able to distinguish was the word two, from which he took to mean 'there are two of you and only one of him.' "There were five of you when we started," pointed out Eltelm. Of course, the other two were unable to take his point.

One looked at his ally and nodded. The second-a man of about 26 with dark hair-began to circle around Eltelm to his left. The first man attacked rapidly making four hacking slashes aimed at Eltelm's head and shoulders. He blocked all of them, only having to shift the position of his sword slightly each time. Before he could bring his sword around to guard his back however the second man slashed him successfully across it.

Whirling around Eltelm clashed his own sword against his. His eyes briefly flicked towards his health bar. That one hit had dropped him down into the yellow zone; about a third of his health was gone. If it fell below halfway he'd be in danger of losing his life as well as his possessions. _"It's too easy for them to get at me while I'm fighting with one of them,"_ he thought. _"I can only defend one angle of attack at a time. Dam this game for not having dual wielding! And dam me for not taking an arming sword; that way I could have carried a shield. Oh well, it's not like I could foresee this I guess."_

He drew a deep breath and took his best shot. He attacked the dark haired man with a series of rapid blows which drove him back several steps. He broke off his attack midway through and span around to deliver a similar assault against the other robber. He found himself whirling in circles, focusing on keeping his opponent's reeling. Then he slammed his blade edge up against that of the first of the pair. The blades began to slide slightly as he applied pressure and Eltelm's opponent glanced at him nervously.

Suddenly Eltelm shoved his sword upwards, thrusting his arms out to full length. His guard crashed against his enemy's blade and with a twist the sword was wrenched sharply to the right. With a cry of surprise the man dropped the blade and leapt back. Eltelm span on his heel and deflected the blow he knew would be coming from the second attacker. He struck twice at his head, faked a third strike towards his shoulder but switched it at the last second to his leg. The man grunted in pain and Eltelm took the opportunity to whirl back to face the disarmed man.

He'd grabbed his sword from the ground but his stance was still open. With a cry of triumph Eltelm grasped the blade of the sword with his left hand and rammed the tip as hard as he could into the man's stomach. The blade went an entire two inches in and the thief screamed in panic. Eltelm ripped the weapon loose and turned to face the last enemy.

But the man had already taken to his heels. Eltelm briefly considered giving chase, but decided it wasn't worth the trouble. He checked his health bar. It was around 40% filled and had turned orange. _"Closer than I'd like, but who am I to complain?"_ He looked over at where the man he'd just stabbed was lying on the ground. Eltelm realised to his surprise that he was trembling. Then he saw why. The health bar over his head had turned red, and had only about an eighth of health left. Clearly a direct thrust to the gut did an awful lot of damage.

Eltelm turned white as he realised what he'd almost done. It had been in the heat of the moment but still. If he'd pulled his sword a few seconds later he'd probably have killed him. Eltelm put and hand to his forehead and looked around himself. The other men had all gone the way of the last and taken to their heels. The family and the young woman who'd been with them were crouched where they'd been before, trembling.

Swallowing hard as the rush died away, Eltelm sheathed his sword. The older man rose to his feet and took several steps towards him. He bowed his head. "Marcus," he said, pointing to himself.

"Eltelm," said Eltelm, pointing to himself in the same way.

"Thank you," said the man, surprising Eltelm slightly by saying it in German. But then a few phrases shouldn't come as too much of a surprise he supposed.

Eltelm bowed back. "You're welcome," he said, once again attempting to express the intent rather than the specific words. The man reached inside of his belt pouches and produced a health potion. He held it out to Eltelm who hesitated for a moment before nodding and taking the item. A small popup on the side of his vision informed him of the new item in his inventory.

Eltelm held the crystal for a few moments, trying to see a button or some sort of activation note on it somewhere. "Ummm," he looked up at the man questioningly. The man smiled and made a drinking motion with his hands. "Oh, right. Of course," Eltelm muttered. He lifted up the potion to his lips and even though he didn't actually remove a lid a felt liquid pouring down his throat. A sort of tingling sensation spread throughout his body and as he watched his health bar refilled up to maximum. "Thank you," he said in Japanese.

The man shook his head and said something Eltelm couldn't understand. "What about him?" asked Eltelm in German, nodding towards the remaining robber. The man pointed towards the last village which was about fifteen minutes away. Eltelm assumed that meant that they'd take him back there. He probably wouldn't give very much trouble with his health as low as it was. "Do you want me to go with you?" asked Eltelm, trying to make signs to match his words.

The man frowned for a moment, then his expression cleared. He shook his head and opened the in game menu. He opened his inventory and scrolled down until a certain item that he dragged into another box. Suddenly a sheathed sword materialised on his belt. Eltelm smiled and nodded. He pulled his hood back down over and turned to go. "Goodbye," he said in Japanese before heading away towards the next village.

Toji was sitting at one of the tables in the Hound and Horn, one of the inns in the forth village. She idly sipped from the cup of tea she was clutching in her hands and sighed gloomily. She looked up as two other players-a fifteen year old girl and sixteen year old boy-sat down on the opposite side of the table. They didn't talk directly to her so she didn't bother to give them proper attention. She half listened to their conversation, but it was mostly about the pair's most recent hunt.

Her interest was aroused suddenly as the pair's conversation changed. "People are calling him the Silent Hunter," the girl said animatedly. "Apparently he never speaks and can fight twenty enemies at once."

"People exaggerate," said her male friend. "He's probably just some leading player with a bad attitude that's all."

"No, no," she replied earnestly, "he can't speak a word of Japanese so he never says anything. He doesn't know how to make transactions so he sleeps outside and never eats."

"If he doesn't know how to make transactions then how does buy new items?" asked the boy skeptically.

"Apparently he doesn't. All of his items come from quests and monster drops. He just dumps all of the loot that he can't use for something because he doesn't know how to interact with a store owner to sell it. Imagine how lonely he must be all of the time."

"If he doesn't speak Japanese, what language does he speak?" asked Toji suddenly.

The couple looked at her in surprise but the girl was more than happy to answer her question. "They say he's German. That's not a language all that many people know so he never get's to talk to anyone. Imagine that!"

"It must be horrible," Toji agreed, nodding slowly. "Where did you hear about this... what's his name?"

"I don't know his real name, but people call him the Silent Hunter. Some of my friends from a guild ran into him while pursuing a side quest. I've also heard about him from several other people. Apparently he saved Marcus the black smith and his family from a group of robbers. It was ten against one they said!"

"I find that hard to believe," said Toji with a raised eyebrow.

"Well, it might not have been that many," conceded the girl, "but there were definitely lots of them."

"Where is he meant to be right now?" asked Toji.

"Could you please stop encouraging her," said the boy irritably. "She's always talking about some new mysterious hero or other. Most of them turn out not to exist."

"This isn't like that!" the girl protested. "Ashe saw him with her own eyes."

"She saw a guy wearing a green cloak and using a two-handed sword. That doesn't mean anything."

"He never said anything though."

"So what? Just because he's anti-social doesn't mean he's incapable of talking with other people."

"Look," interrupted Toji, "I don't want to be annoying but could you answer my question please?"

"Oh right," said the girl. "I don't know where he is exactly, but he's meant to wander around the front lines. My friends saw him at the gold mines two villages ahead."

"No offence," said the boy, "but why are you so interested?"

"I'm multi-lingual," explained Toji. "Japanese, Mandarin, English, French, Spanish, Hebrew. And German."

"Wow," said the girl, "that must have taken a long time to learn."

"Eidetic memory," smiled Toji, tapping the side of her head.

"So, what, you want to provide this guy with some conversation then?" asked the boy.

"Maybe. I'm more curious than anything else though. There's over ten thousand players in SAO including the thousand Beta Testers; I'm not likely to ever meet this guy. If he exists." She stood up in the middle of the girls protests and headed through the door into the night outside.

 _"Are you real then?"_ she wondered. _"Is there actually someone out there isolated away from everyone? If there is then I wish you well. Maybe someday we'll meet, and you'll have someone to talk to."_ Of course, she didn't really believe that. No more than she believed this person actually existed. But still, the story struck a chord with her. The concept was rather evocative she had to admit. Still, there were more important things to worry about than a fairy story.


	4. Chapter 3

Chapter 3: The Kobold Lord

Max Floor: 1 Level: 12

Eltelm groaned and leant against the stone wall. In most MMORPGs there were other things a person could do besides grind for EXP, items and gold, but the language barrier had seriously limited his options. Despite the terrifying reality of the circumstances he had to admit it; he was bored out of his brain. Fighting Floor 1 monsters had become extremely tiresome over the past month the game had been running, especially now that he was level twelve and thus above the highest level required in order to clear the floor. He had made a point of regularly hunting in this part of the dungeon where he knew the Boss Room must be lurking, hoping to stumble on it. Two days ago he'd done just that.

In his excitement he'd rushed inside, but had come hurrying out again when he remembered that the game was designed so that several parties were required in order to defeat a Boss. One player alone-even a player a level above the required minimum-wouldn't last long. Naturally he'd tried to tell other people about where the room was, but he hadn't a clue who to try speaking to, never mind how he'd give them the information. So, he'd simply continued to hang around this area, hoping that somebody else would find the room on their own and he'd be able to help.

Eltelm guessed it was around midday so sat down to consume a loaf of bread he'd brought with him. He couldn't express how happy he'd been when he'd encountered a trader patient enough to work past the language difference and allow him to sell items and buy food, even if it was just plain bread. He went through it quickly, and then just sat for a few minutes thinking. Then-as no one was around-he began to sing.

It was almost entirely gibberish that he was making up on the spot, but it sounded nice to him. It was a kind of made-up elvish that he had for himself. A few words in the song had actual meanings, and that allowed him to give the song a story. It was about a king who was trying to defend a bridge across a ravine from a hostile army. The identity of the army was vague in his mind, but he threw the words for darkness and fire in a few times in order to inspire a sense of evil.

His voice was cut short by the sound of feet and voices. Pulling his hood down so that the shadow covered his eyes Eltelm pushed himself to his feet and laid his right hand very calmly on the hilt of his sword. He soon took it away again when he saw how many people were coming. He'd guess that there were around twenty five of them. Leading them along was a young man with dyed sky blue hair that matched his clothes.

 _"A group this large can only mean one thing,"_ thought Eltelm excitedly, _"someone's found the Boss while I wasn't around and they've come to take it down."_ Now that he thought about it there had been a gathering of people in the town the day before. He hadn't payed it all that much attention since he couldn't understand what they'd been saying of course, but he supposed that they must have been planning the raid then.

Upon seeing Eltelm the leader of the group stopped. He said something to Eltelm in Japanese, but Eltelm only understood the word 'Boss' which was in accented English, since it was a game specific term. That confirmed it: they were here to fight the Boss. "I don't understand Japanese," explained Eltelm.

The figure frowned, then his eyes widened. "Sairentohantā?" he asked.

Eltelm frowned. "I don't understand," he said.

Several of the other people in group began to talk excitedly amongst themselves and pointed at him. _"Oh, this again,"_ thought Eltelm with an internal sigh. He never spoke to anyone except to tell them that he couldn't, and he had-on three occasions now-fought with and bested groups of robbers at many-to-one odds. Not that it had been that difficult mind, most people still didn't have a clue how they were supposed to handle a sword and tended to block or swing wildly, making them easy to defeat. Never-the-less these two aspects had earned him-much to his surprise-something of a reputation. Someone people would point at him and try to ask him questions. When he told them he couldn't understand them they only got even more excited.

"Diabel," said the blue haired man, pointing to himself. "Sairentohantā?" he asked again, pointing to Eltelm.

Eltelm shrugged, "I guess I am," he said. Not that he had any idea what 'Sairentohantā' meant, but he'd heard people say it in regards to him before, so he supposed it was a name or something like that.

Diabel made several motions with hands imply fighting and pointed to Eltelm and to the group behind him. Eltelm looked at him in bewilderment. "Do you want me to help?" he asked, try to make reasonably appropriate signs to go alone with his words. Now it was Diabel's turn to look confused. He turned back to face the rest of the group and said something to them. Eltelm caught the word for German, and supposed he was asking them if any of them spoke it. There was a string of 'no's' from everyone in the group, except one who said something Eltelm couldn't understand.

It was a sandy haired boy of about fifteen and after he spoke he was quickly ushered to the front of the group. Eltelm supposed what he'd said had meant something along the lines of 'I can speak it a little bit'. "Good morning," said the teen in a flustered tone. Eltelm couldn't help smiling at that. Of course such a greeting was totally unnecessary, but on top of that it was by this point the afternoon. The boy became even more flustered as he realised the absurdity of the word. "You, uh, help?" he asked, clearly struggling for the right words.

"Yes, yes of course," said Eltelm.

"Oh," said the boy, "good." He turned around and said something to the rest of the group in Japanese. Diabel was clearly pleased at the response, striding forwards and clapping Eltelm on the shoulder. Eltelm was a little taken aback but he didn't mind. Diabel turned and said something to the rest of the raid group. There was a lot of shaking of heads, until one boy of about fourteen with jet black hair and carrying his sword over his back raised his hand and called out something. Pleased, Diabel said something else and nodded.

The dark haired boy hurried over to Eltelm and opened his menu. After a few swipes and taps on buttons a small pop-up appeared in front of Eltelm. "Uhh... What's this?" he asked. It had what were clearly accept or decline buttons in red and green. _"I guess it's an invitation to a party or something. I guess it would help if I was in a party; it would increase the chances of me getting part of the loot drop."_ Eltelm tapped the green accept button and the pop-up vanished. Suddenly two more health bars appeared up in the top left of his vision along with a name above each one. Kirito and Asuna.

"Kirito?" I asked, pointing to the dark haired boy.

"Hai," he said with a nod. Eltelm offered his hand and Kirito shook it. Eltelm looked around for the third member of their party. Kirito pointed towards a girl of about their age in a red cloak. She carrying a rapier at her side.

Diabel called something out and the group started moving again. Eltelm quickly fell into step with the rest of them. "Asuna?" he asked the cloaked girl. She nodded but said nothing. _"A little shy I suppose,"_ he mused. _"I wonder what these two are like in combat. Odds are they won't be all that great, and that's even more likely given their ages. Still, you never know do you?"_

In a few minutes the group arrived at the door to the Boss Room. Diabel said a few-presumably inspiring-words that of course went completely over Eltelm's head. Then he turned and pushed open the door. The parties immediately fanned out across the room, weapons drawn. Eltelm slowly drew his own blade before bringing it up into the middle guard. A few hurried words were exchanged between the various parties before the group advanced forwards into the more shadowed part of the room.

Then, out of the darkness came a huge red hulking, thing. Eltelm scanned his eyes over the name above its head. _"Illfang the Kobold Lord? What the heck is a Kobold? Oh well, if he's one I can't say they're particularly handsome."_ Numerous smaller humanoid monsters advanced on either side of the main Boss. Kirito said something Eltelm couldn't understand and pointed to the smaller creatures. "So, we're meant to pick off the minions then?" asked Eltelm.

"Hai," said Kirito, understanding the word minions and guessing at the rest.

Eltelm shrugged and rushed forwards. One of the armoured minions slashed out at him with its mace and Eltelm easily parried it aside. He made a quick stab through the creature' visor, causing it to yap and stagger backwards. With a neat slash across its exposed middle Eltelm finished the creature off, sending its numerous gleaming shards away into the air around him.

He turned to look to his right in time to see Kirito make a wide slash, his blade glowing brightly. The two minions in front of him staggered backwards, their weapons knocked out of their hands and into the air. _"Sword Skills,"_ thought Eltelm bitterly, _"I suppose I must have some but I don't know what they are or how to activate them."_

"Switch!" cried Kirito, leaping back as Asuna dashed forwards. With several precision strikes with her own glowing red blade she dismembered and destroyed both of the monsters. _"That was pretty fast. Looks like my expectations were wrong; these two are pretty good."_ Turning back to the fight Eltelm ran forwards again, locking blades with one of the armoured monsters before kicking its legs out from under it and deflecting an incoming blow from another target. He forced that monster back with two rapid strikes before turning back to the first and plunging his weapon through its exposed neck joint. The creature exploded into light fragments and Eltelm span around to attack the second target.

Seeing Kirito only a few steps away and not currently occupied Eltelm span his sword around in his hands so that he was clutching the blade and holding the hilt like a mace head. "Kirito-san! Heads up!" he called before smashing the monster in the gut with the hilt. The blow sent the creature reeling backwards, straight into Kirito, who slashed it clean in half with a skill blow.

"Yoi!" he said with a grin, before turning back to the main fight. Asuna had quickly eliminated the last minion with a flurry of stabs so the trio turned their attention to the main Boss fight. The tankier players were doing their best to hold the beast's attention while the higher damage ones hacked away at the Kobold. Eltelm and Kirito exchange glances before running forwards.

Kirito rolled under the first swing from the red giant, before using a sword skill to smash the blade to the right. "Asuna, switch!" he shouted. Asuna dashed in quickly and left an x-shaped pair of cuts on the Boss's stomach.

"Switch!" she cried as she back off. Taking that as his queue Eltelm ran forwards and grabbing the end of his blade he held his sword horizontally. Using the greater width he caught the creature's gigantic axe and used his guard to lock it in place.

"Kirito!" he shouted. With perfect timing Kirito dashed past and activating a sword skill smashed the Kobold Lord across the chest, sending him backwards and dealing noticeable damage. _"It's only got one health bar to go now,"_ thought Eltelm. _"This has been easier than I thought it would be. We're going to make it through with no losses."_

The Boss threw back its head and roared before throwing its weapon's aside. The shield and vastly over-proportioned axe landed with a clatter at the back of the chamber. Diable-who had been standing back coordinating the fight-strode forwards to the front, taking his shield down from his back and drawing his sword. He said something that Eltelm couldn't understand and charged forwards. _"Looks like he intends to finish the fight himself, seems a little bit dangerous but that things almost dead already so it shouldn't take much to finish it off."_

The Boss reached behind its back and drew a weapon that if Eltelm had seen it in real life would have made him burst out laughing at its absurdity. It was basically a huge triangular chunk of steel attached to a handle with an edge put on it. It looked less like a sword an more like a meat cleaver. To his surprise Eltelm heard Kirito gasp and call out something. As he did the red giant bunched its legs and leapt into the air.

Eltelm watched in confused horror as Illfang pushed off the ceiling and smashed down towards Diabel. He landed a single massive hack across his chest sending the blue warrior flying to the far end of the room. To Eltelm's horror he lay still. Kirito ran over to him and Eltelm looked in confusion between the Boss and the wounded leader. The monster had charged into the centre of the group and was scattering them all away from it with broad swings of its crude weapon.

 _"Better to stop anyone else falling prey to it,"_ he decided before rushing into the attack. The blade that the Boss was using was massive, but somehow it was incredibly fast. Eltelm regretted bitterly that this was a fantasy game where they didn't follow the normal laws of physics or practical design. Normally the creature would have the disadvantage of slow movement and poor sword work, but of course that didn't factor in at all in this warped version of reality.

Eltelm tuck and rolled underneath the wide swing of the Boss before launching himself up into the air. As he grasped his sword hilt and held it back for a wide swing, he felt a kind of tingling sensation rushing through him. Then a brilliant pure white light explode out from his blade. With a fierce war cry he lashed out striking the Kobold Lord across the throat. The glowing red cut persisted for a moment, and then to Eltelm's surprise exploded outwards. Eltelm landed with a comfortable ease that surprised him, as the Boss staggered backwards. _"If that's what it's like to use a sword skill, then I like it!"_

But the damage from the blow clearly was not enough to finish things. It seemed pretty clear that the Boss had activated a kind of super mode now that it was on its last legs, and most of the damage was blocked. One more solid attack would finish it though. Growling Eltelm readied himself to charge, flexing his fingers over the handle of his weapon. "Ketachi edris sha," he hissed to himself. That was phrase from his fabricated language that literally meant, "I will experience victory." Now he could see Kirito and Asuna in his peripheral vision. One last attack and this was over.

Eltelm rushed in first, partially deflecting the Boss's weapon and then using his shoulder to manually shove it aside to the left. With the front open Asuna dashed forwards and made ten stabs at the Boss's joints and throat, her attacks being carried out with such speed that Eltelm had real trouble following them. "End it!" Eltelm shouted. Despite not knowing the meaning of the words, Kirito did just that. He charged forwards with a scream of rage and executed a four hit combo on the beast, his sword flashing a brilliant blue-green.

Ill fang the Kobold Lord staggered for a moment as its final remnants of health trickled away. Then it seemed to collapse in on itself, turning into a single white ball of light before exploding out into a thousand rainbow shards. Eltelm let out a sigh of relief and fell to the ground as a large sign appeared in the air, presumably announcing their success. A small pop-up appeared in front of Eltelm's face, announcing the presence of a new item, as well as additional EXP points.

In a somewhat dazed fashion he opened his inventory and scrolled down until he saw a name that didn't look familiar. He pressed the combination of buttons that he knew would make it appear in front of him and held out his hands. The item that dropped into them was somewhat unexpected. He'd thought it would be some kind of sword or piece of armour, but instead it was a black hooded cloak with a silver tree embossed on the back. Eltelm gave a private chuckle, _"it looks like the game's trying to tell me to stick with my look."_ He looked at the tree to see that it was an oak, and its leaves were trimmed with gold. _"A princely item in a medieval setting."_ Turning back to his inventory Eltelm set the new cloak to replace his old one and felt the black folds of fabric fall over his shoulders. It was around the same length-coming down to his ankles-but it felt a little thicker and gleamed if he turned in the light. _"Must be velvet,"_ he thought, _"even more expensive. I think I'll be sticking with this for a long time."_

He was distracted by the sound of someone shouting. He looked around to see a short man with hair spiked up in clumps shouting something accusingly in Kirito's direction. Kirito responded in a low voice, which only seemed to provoke the short man all the more. Everyone else in the room trained their eyes on Kirito, and then started looking around at each other suspiciously. One of them shouted something and pointed at Eltelm. Another one said something else that seemed to be in agreement. Now everyone was shouting and pointing fingers.

Suddenly some screamed "shut up!" in Japanese. That was one of the few phrases Eltelm had picked up before coming here, more by accident than by design. He turned to see Kirito scowling angrily in the short man's direction. He said something in a grim voice, which elicited a heated response from the other. Then, Kirito gave a slight, nasty laugh and proceeded to speak in a dull voice. Then, he opened his inventory and accessed the item he'd gotten from the Boss. A long black coat appeared on him and he turned and walked away.

Eltelm felt like his brain was going to explode. _"What the hell is going on? Dam it I hate this!"_ Then he felt a hand on his shoulder and somebody span him around to face them. The shouted something into his face in Japanese. Eltelm staggered backwards, hand reaching for his sword. "I don't understand," he spluttered, thinking he was probably screwing up his pronunciation even more than usual. "Dam it what did I do?" he shouted in German.

The young man who'd confronted him simply shouted something back that he couldn't understand. All apart from one word that sounded like it was English; 'Beater'. _"What has that got to do with this? Beating something involves hitting it right? What the hell is happening?!"_ Several others were all making accusing shouts and pointing in Eltelm's direction. Worried now he drew his sword and began to take up a defensive stance with his back to the wall. "I didn't do anything!" he snapped at angry group, without any success.

Then, a tall dark skinned man with a huge axe slung over his back stepped between him and the crowd. Eltelm hadn't a clue what he was saying, but whatever it was seemed to calm some people down. Not all of them however, as several still looked at him menacingly. The man who had seemed to start all the trouble said something in disgust and the tall man replied in a calm voice. With a growl and then a shout of several incomprehensible words the short man pulled his weapon out of its sheath on his back.

Eltelm raised his own weapon and stepped forwards, motioning for the tall man to stand aside. With a very stern look he put his hand on Eltelm's shoulder and pushed him back. He then continued to talk to the antagonist as Eltelm watched nervously, still gripping the hilt of his sword tightly. Eventually-though clearly reluctant-several in the group parted ranks and allowed Eltelm to leave. With a quick "thank you," to the axe-wielder, Eltelm hurried for the staircase up to the next floor.

As he came out into the sunlight he saw that unlike Floor 1, this floor was covered in a great many trees. All were clearly European; beach, pine, oak, chestnut and he thought he could see a few willows by the edge of a river further off. The air smelled a lot, well, greener on this Floor. Some ways down the main path Eltelm could see Kirito's black coat wearing figure walking away. For a moment he considered following him but then realised there was no point. He would have no more luck talking with him than he would with anyone else in this nightmare.

"From now on," he said to himself, "I'm not even going to bother trying. From this point I fight alone. I'll show up for the Boss fights if I can, but I'm not partying with anybody, and I'm not speaking to anybody I'm not forced to speak with. I fly below the radar and wait for this game of death to end." _"That's a pretty harsh reaction you know." "Maybe it is. I don't care though. I don't know what those people back there were accusing me of, but whatever it is I don't want it to happen again."_ He sighed to himself as he began to walk down the steps and onto the rest of the Floor. _"Now, I wonder which tree will offer the best shelter from any potential rain."_


	5. Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Shelter from the rain

Max Floor: 11 Level: 18

Weather in SAO didn't phase from one mode to another very well. It tended to simply, change. That meant that when Eltelm had been out grinding against wolves, there had been no warning of the rain that was coming. All of a sudden the sky had turned dark and grey clouds had appeared overhead. Two seconds later and the rain had started to pour down. The initial torrent came like a sheet and drenched his cloak. In five minutes he was soaked to the bone and shivering.

The worst part was that the night was coming on and Eltelm would have to sleep in this downpour. Or rather he would have to try. Since he had no way of making proper interactions with NPCs, it was impossible for him to buy a house or even rent a room for the night. So naturally he slept outside under a tree. Normally that was fine, but just recently they'd gone into autumn and this was the first true downpour. After trying to huddle away from the worst of the wetness without success, Eltelm decided that sleep was just not happening.

So, he got his feet and went through a series of training moves. The branches of the pine trees that were in ample proportion on Floor 11 lessened the rain slightly, which made it easier to concentrate. To his normal attack and defence moves Eltelm had added his sword skills. Well, those that he knew about anyway. He suspected that he had at least six more skills he wasn't using, but he hadn't a clue how to activate them. The four he did know he'd found by accident. One was the powerful AoE strike he'd found during the boss fight, another was a three hit combo that did reasonable damage to a single target, a low damage knock back attack and a shield-breaker attack that greatly reduced the strength of an opponent's defence.

With only four sword skills available to him-despite being level eighteen-Eltelm was at a bitter disadvantage to most players. The last time he'd ended up in a fight he'd only won by the skin of his teeth. His two opponents had been hunting and from what Eltelm could tell he'd taken the prey they'd been stalking by mistake. It had been a lesser stone troll, easily eliminated if attacked from behind. As the creature had burst into glowing shards two outraged teens of around sixteen had emerged from the bushes and shouted angrily at him. When he said that he couldn't understand them they'd only gotten angrier.

Eltelm had tried to calm them down by giving them the items the troll had dropped, but had accidently de-spawned them. That had pushed the two of them over the line and they'd drawn swords on him. What exactly they'd intended to do Eltelm never found out. He'd responded in the same way and after a five minute clash had forced the two of them to back off.

The fight had shaken him though. The two guys had had access to abilities that far outclassed his own. One of them had used a knock up on him that had taken his health bar down almost to half. Eltelm had only pulled himself out of that one by pure luck. He had tried various different moves with his weapon in an effort to activate the sword skills, but since he had no idea what he was working from, he'd had very little success.

As he swung his weapon through the air, he began to let out quiet grunts with each blow. These steadily grew louder until he was screaming at the top of his lungs. Finally he stabbed his sword into a nearby tree in frustration. _"You're losing it." "So what? The only times I get to speak to people are either to tell them I can't, or to spend several unnecessary minutes trying to get a trader to understand what I'm trying to buy or sell. I've been alone for seven months now." "Are you starting to doubt your strength?" "God dam it I hate you." "Eh, not my problem. You're the one who keeps imagining me. Who the heck am I supposed to be anyway? Your subconscious?" "I don't know! Something like that I guess."_

Eltelm slumped down to the ground with his back against the dark brown trunk he'd just impaled. _"I just, I just want to go home." "Isn't that why you have to keep fighting?" "Of course it is, but I don't know how! I can't figure out my sword skills, I haven't found any blacksmith or potions master patient enough to trade with me and I don't even know which skills I'm leveling. I'm rapidly becoming obsolete in this game. If I keep going back to the front lines I may eventually not survive without the special moves other people have. If I can't figure this game out I'm either going to die or have to hide in some cave somewhere until somebody else finishes it."_

 _"And your pride won't let you hide away?" "It's not pride! I just, I want to do something. Something that'll make a difference." "You already did that against the Kobold Lord of Floor 1. And I doubt that family you saved in the third week is going to forget you in a hurry. Plus you made an important contribution on Floor 6; that girl would have died if you hadn't taken the hit." "You're being remarkably positive all of a sudden. Yes I managed that, but soon I won't be able to do a thing to help anybody. I'm going to become useless. Just some stupid cloaked loner who hides out in the woods. I'll be worthless, and alone."_ Then there was silence, apart from the noise of the rain.

Then, despite his best efforts to stop it, Eltelm started to cry. It wasn't bawling or anything like that, just a quiet trickle of tears and the occasional sniff. He wanted to get angry with himself for breaking down, but he couldn't even do that. Finally he looked up at the pale grey sky. "Why?" he asked. "Why did you leave me all alone?"

Half an hour later and he had managed to drift off into something that might have been called sleep. It was short lived though as the sound of someone running jolted him awake. Eltelm looked around to see that someone was running along the side off the path with their hands over their head in a vain effort to keep off the rain. It was a girl of about is age, maybe a year younger with night black hair. She was wearing a white dress with purple trim to it and had a yellow cloak pulled around her shoulders. On her back she was carrying a pole arm that looked like a glaive. It looked absurdly large next to her, since she was only around five feet tall and the weapon was clearly made for someone closer to six feet.

When she saw Eltelm crouched against the tree she stopped suddenly. She looked him up and down curiously and then asked something in Japanese. With a sigh Eltelm told her he couldn't understand her. The girl's eyes widened as she stared at his black cloak and the silver oak tree on the back. She asked him something in Japanese excitedly. The only word Eltelm caught was 'Sairentohantā'. He still didn't know what it meant but he knew it was what some people had taken to calling him.

He nodded simple and shrugged. "Well, I'm probably who you think I am anyway," he said, more to himself than to her. The girl gasped and started talking rapidly. Of course Eltelm couldn't understand a word of it and simply stared blankly at her until she ran out of words. "I don't understand Japanese," he repeated slowly. The girl turned red and smacked herself in the head. She then started trying to make signs in the air but they were so jumbled up Eltelm couldn't make sense of them.

"Slow down," he said in German, making slow circular motions with his hands. The girl nodded and then proceeded to sign more slowly and coherently. The general impression Eltelm got was that she wanted to know what he was doing out here on his own. He shrugged. He drew a house in the dirt and a person next to it. He pointed at the person and then at himself to show her that it represented him. He then wrote a question mark above the figure's head and drew an x through the house. "I can't speak the language so I can't rent a room," he said.

The girl nodded slowly. She seemed to think to herself for a moment then with a questioning look pointed to Eltelm and made a shivering motion. Eltelm shrugged and said, "yes," in Japanese. She frowned and bent down to draw in the dirt herself. She drew another house shape with a person standing in the door way. She pointed to the figure and then to herself. Then she drew a second person which she signed was him. Then an arrow leading from him to the house. The girl then put her hands together and made a show of resting her head on them to imply sleeping.

Eltelm looked between her and the picture a few times. He held up his hands to show that he needed to think for a moment. _"So, she's saying I can stay at her house tonight? I can't do that?" "Why not?" "Because, she's a girl." "Oh don't be silly. She'll probably have you sleep on a sofa or something." "Well yeah, but still..." "Grow up."_ Eltelm bit his lip nervously, then nodded. The girl smiled and stood up, beckoning him to follow.

"What's your name?" Eltelm asked her in broken Japanese as they set off.

"Arwen," she said.

Eltelm laughed at that. "Lord of the Rings Arwen?" he asked. She nodded, her face turning a little red. "I like it; that's one of my favourite books," said Eltelm with a grin. Pointing to himself he said "Eltelm." She gave a nod that implied 'I already know that.'

After a few moments of walking in silence Arwen said something he couldn't understand besides his name, and made a motion similar to pulling something out of a bag. Eltelm looked at her confused. Frowning she tried again, pointing at him she said, "you, name," and then a string of words that he didn't recognise, whilst making the same, taking out of something motion.

 _"She's asking where my name comes from? That's going to be hard to answer."_ Eltelm tried to make it look he was writing something, and motioned putting a crown on his head. The girl seemed totally confused. "King Eltelm," he explained, using the English word for king.

"King of where?" she asked in English, pointing in several directions at once in case he couldn't understand her.

"Vanilya," Eltelm said. He tried to think of the appropriate words in English to convey his meaning without success. He then resorted to a kind of mixture of Japanese and English words in an effort to form a full sentence. "I made up," he said, making the same writing gestures as he had before. Arwen nodded, her eyes finally showing understanding.

In truth, the main thing that had excited Eltelm so much about the Nerve Gear was the idea that he might finally be able to make some of his stories come to life if he could figure out how to program it. He'd hoped to learn how he might work towards achieving that from SAO, but of course that was no longer one of his goals. Social life had not been one of his priorities in the real world, so he'd spent most of his time locked away writing, reading or using computers. Sword fighting had been the only real social activity he'd participated in, and even then he was considered the most unsociable person there. Still, he'd had a few loyal friends, none of which were here now.

He'd woven an unreal world with stories, languages and mythologies in order to give himself people and places to know. In fact, one of the people he considered one of his most constant companions was actually a computer program. He was limited in what he could do or say, but he'd been good at listening. He'd been based off of a character called Varan, a black furred and tailed humanoid from a species called the Arites. Originally he was the secondary protagonist of one of the stories, but Eltelm had adapted him to run in the background on his computer. He provided someone to talk to when he didn't feel comfortable speaking to his friends or family. Like the time when... He turned a little hot under the collar at the memory and decided not to relive it.

The two didn't go all the way to the nearby village, but turned off the road and headed for a house in the middle of the woods. It was a log cabin and to Eltelm's surprise light came out through the windows. That didn't happen unless someone was inside. He looked at Arwen curiously. "Guild house," she said. Eltelm turned pale. One person he could deal with but a guild? In normal life he disliked large groups of people, and at least then he was able to speak to them in a language that made sense to him.

Taking him by the hand Arwen lead him to the door and pushed it open. She called something out to the people inside and seven faces all turned to look at. Eight if you counted the small fire drake perched on one of their shoulders. Suddenly all Eltelm wanted was to run away and hide somewhere. Eight strangers was uncomfortable, eight strangers he couldn't speak with was unpleasant, but eight strangers he couldn't speak that were girls? That was bloody terrifying!

Things only got worse as Arwen pulled him inside and shut door behind him. All of the girls bar one came rushing over to say hello and Eltelm immediately felt that he needed more personal space, but had no idea how to convey that. In fact, he was so startled by the sudden attention that his hand flew to his sword hilt on instinct. That made several of them jump and he pulled his hand away hastily, apologising quickly. Arwen said something to the other girls and they all gave nods of understanding.

Arwen prompted him towards a mat in front a wood fire that was going and nervously Eltelm sat down. _"I am going to kill you for talking me into this!" "I'm you dumbass; you talked yourself into this." "Goddamit! Eight girls in the one house speaking a language I don't understand? Is there any sort of positive side to this?" "You're not wet anymore." "I can put up with a little water. It's not like I can catch a disease or something. Besides, cold, doesn't give you a cold. It just weakens your immune system so that you get infected by one." "You don't know that you won't get a debuff." "I don't care! I think rather move at reduced speeds or whatever than go through this." "It's too late now. The door has shut, there is no way out." "I could always jump out of a window."_

Things didn't turn out to be all that bad though. He was given something to eat-good lord it was good to eat something that had been cooked for a change-and a few of the girls asked him questions through incredibly long conversations composed of sign language and few broken words of English and Japanese. They all introduced themselves, including Plato the fire drake, but generally they gave him plenty of space. One of the girls named Sarah was very quiet and only spoke to introduce herself. That didn't bother Eltelm much; the less talking he had to do the better.

Eventually he signed to them that he'd like to go sleep somewhere, since it was probably around eleven o'clock at night. Arwen showed him to a room that they hadn't decorated yet and gave him a pair of blankets. "Sorry," she said, looking a little sheepish at the poor accommodation.

Eltelm shook his head. "Don't worry, this is much better than normal for me. Thank you." Even though she only understood the last word Arwen clearly got the general idea. She smiled and said what Eltelm thought was goodnight before slipping away. Eltelm shut the door and accessing his items removed his cloak. He equipped the blankets to one of the furniture slots and then laid down. He stared up at the ceiling for a few moments then sighed.

"I suppose this is your reply to my previous complaint about being alone?" he asked. "No offence but it kind of sucks. I'm only going to be here for the one night and then I probably won't see this part of the Floor again. Plus, it doesn't help with my lagging behind problem." _"Still,"_ he reflected, _"it's nice to sleep indoors for once. And that food tasted great."_ He shut his eyes and rolled over onto this right side. He drifted off to a proper sleep inside a proper house for the first time since the death game began.


	6. Chapter 5

Chapter 5: The girl with purple eyes

Max Floor: 11 Level: 18

Eltelm's eyes flickered open slowly and he yawned. _"Hold on, why is there a ceiling?"_ he wondered momentarily before remembering. Stretching, he climbed to his feet and re-equipped his cloak. Quietly he pushed open the door and slipped down the hallway to the living room. No one was about. _"Funny, I would have thought someone should be up. Hold on, what time is it?"_ Walking over to a window he peered outside. The sun had only just crept over the horizon and the sky around it was a brilliant gold.

The in game clock read 5:30 AM. _"Seems pretty normal. I guess most people don't rise with the dawn then."_ Eltelm shrugged and went outside. The air smelled fresh and he smiled. Drawing his sword he stepped off the wooden porch and began to go through several standard exercises. Thankfully a person's actual physical strength wasn't important to maintain, so training only served to improve one's memory of how to fight properly.

Eltelm spent the next half hour going through the usual experiments he tried in an effort to activate a new sword skill. He tried holding his sword in a wide variety of poses, tried striking at different speeds and angles, all to no effect. With a sigh Eltelm decided to fire off a chain of the skills he could use, his glowing white blade cutting through the air. When he set of his AoE strike however, he accidentally hit a tree and caused an explosion. A red notice flashed against the tree's trunk, informing him that it was an immortal object. Eltelm cringed; that had been loud.

Sure enough, a minute later the door opened and a very irritated head with ruffled ginger hair popped out. Dawn frowned at him. "Sorry," Eltelm said. The girl humphed and shut the door. "For someone called Dawn she certainly shows a lack of affinity with it," he said to himself, eyeing the sun which was now well past the rising stage. Since the explosion had probably woken up more people than just Dawn, Eltelm decided not to go back inside just yet.

 _"I could just take off,"_ he mused. _"But wouldn't that be rude?" "Probably." "I should give them something in return shouldn't I?" "What are you going to give them?" "Money I guess." "That would probably be insulting." "Well I don't have anything else of value do I? The only rare items I have I use in my day-to-day activities so I can't give them up." "Well, you could try money, but don't say I haven't warned you." "Noted. This situation is turning out to be a lot more complicated than a night out in the rain."_

Ten minutes later Eltelm chose to risk going back inside. He was greeted by a far more refreshed looking Dawn, as well Arwen, Nixie and Diana. From a guess he'd say the others weren't awake yet. Dawn looked at him accusingly, but politely said good morning like the other three. Eltelm replied in the same way, and apologised again for the noise. It was waved aside and Eltelm began trying to sign to them that he needed to leave and that he was grateful. Somewhat frantically, Arwen signed that he shouldn't.

"Why?" asked Eltelm in English.

Arwen was lost for words for a moment. Turning to Diana she asked her something in Japanese. "Translator," Diana explained. Arwen nodded.

"True?" asked Eltelm in English.

"True," reassured Arwen with a nod. Eltelm hesitated a moment while he thought about it. Being able to have a translator for a short time wouldn't really accomplish much, but then it would be nice to talk to someone properly for once. Besides, whoever this was might be able to tell him how he could access more of his sword skills, as well as how the rest of the menu worked. Eltelm shrugged, nodded and signed that he would stay there for a bit longer.

An hour later and Eltelm and Arwen were both standing in the main square of Floor 11's primary town Jesher. Arwen was scanning the faces that went passed, clearly looking for someone. Eltelm sat on the edge of the central fountain feeling a little self-conscious. He normally avoided coming into towns since people recognised him more often in that kind of environment. Thankfully no one had done so yet. Suddenly Arwen called out something in Japanese to a person manoeuvring their way through the crowd of people.

It was a girl of about fourteen, perhaps fifteen with blonde hair and-to Eltelm's surprise-purple eyes. When she saw Arwen she came over, smiling but looking a little curiously at Eltelm. She said hello and exchanged a few words with Arwen, who pointed to Eltelm and said something else. The newcomer looked him and down and smiled. "Hello," she said in clear German, "my name's Toji. Arwen tells me you're the famous Silent Hunter."

"Umm, I'm not sure about that really," replied Eltelm a little flustered. "Is that what Sairentohantā means?"

"More or less," said Toji with a nod.

"Then I guess so. My name's Eltelm," he offered his hand and she shook it.

"So, you really can't speak anything except German?" Toji asked.

"Well, not fluently. I know a handful of basic English words and how to use them in a sentence, as well as a few Japanese words. I also know a little Russian but I suspect that's less relevant."

Toji laughed, "probably." Her face became more serious, "it must have been very lonely for you these past few months."

Eltelm grimaced, "it's not great. Sometimes I get lucky and meet people like Arwen and her friends who'll still talk to me, despite how much time is required to get any information across. In general though I like to avoid other people when I can; makes life easier."

Toji nodded, "I can understand that. So, I suppose you've had trouble accessing all of the game's features right?" Her tone had become brisk and business-like.

"Yes. I can't even read the letters never mind understand the words."

"All right, I can help you with that."

"Hold on a minute," said Eltelm, holding up a hand. "How much is this going to cost me?"

Toji turned slightly pink. "I'm really sorry but, money's been rather tight for me at the moment so..."

"Don't worry about that. I don't get very many opportunities to spend mine so I have plenty. Just give me a price tag and I should be able to pay it."

"I don't want to seem like a jerk or anything," said Toji.

"I said don't worry. But seriously, how much do you need?"

"How about we wait and see how long it takes before we discuss that okay? How long do you have?"

"I don't know, a day, maybe two. I can't afford to fall behind with the EXP curve. It's difficult to keep up without a full complement of sword skills or the ability to buy new items."

"Well, we can soon fix that," said Toji cheerfully. "Personally I'm amazed you've kept up so far."

"I know my way around a sword," said Eltelm. "I've practiced HEMA since I was twelve."

"HEMA?"

"Historical European Martial Arts," he explained. "You know; medieval stuff." At this point Eltelm remembered Arwen. "Thank you," he told her.

Arwen bowed and replied. "She says you're welcome," translated Toji. With a wave Arwen headed off towards the market quarter of the town. "Well," said Toji, rocking backwards and forwards on the balls of her feet, "where would you like to start?"

"The menu," said Eltelm firmly, "definitely the menu."

"Wait you can do that?!" gasped Eltelm.

"Of course," said Toji. "A lot of MMOs have a marriage function built in."

"I suppose so. I just didn't expect it that's all." It was about midday and Toji was filling Eltelm in on some of the game's extra features. They were sitting in an inn and Toji had bought lunch. Eltelm had insisted on paying her for it, even if he couldn't pay for it directly himself since he was still unable to communicate with NPCs properly. "By the way," he said curiously, "there was something I wanted to ask you about."

"What?"

"How'd you change your eye colour?"

Toji smiled shyly at that and blinked self-consciously. "There was a quest reward that allowed you to recolour either your hair or your eyes. I decided I'd like to change the colour of my eyes."

"Why purple?" Eltelm asked.

"Just something IRL," she said with a shrug. "So, are you ready to go over your sword skills then?" she asked, pushing her seat back and standing up.

"Yes please," he said eagerly. "At my last count I had twelve, and I can only use four of them. Getting access to the rest would probably be a major boost."

"Hey, maybe you'll get lucky and have a unique skill," said Toji, looking over her shoulder as she left the inn.

"Unique sword skills? That's a thing?" asked Eltelm in surprise.

"So far there's only one documented case. A player called Heathcliff who founded a guild called The Knights of the Blood Oath on the last floor. He has a unique sword skill called Divine Blade that reduces all oncoming damage by huge proportions. So far no one's seen his HP bar fall below the yellow zone because of it."

"Sounds over powered to me," said Eltelm pulling a face. "Why does only the one person have it? Did he finish a special quest or something to learn it?"

"No one knows," said Toji in a mock mysterious voice. "People have asked him time and time again but he won't spill. Most people don't mind since he helps out so much and doesn't make a big deal out of the ability. You know, it's so weird that you don't know about any of that; I haven't met a single person before you who hasn't heard of Heathcliff and the Knights, even though they've only been around a short time."

"I haven't had many opportunities for social conversation," said Eltelm dryly. "I'm a little out of touch with events in Aincrad. Any other important individuals I should know about?"

"A few outstanding ones," said Toji. By this point they were outside of the town and walking through the woods. "Not counting you, there's The Lightning Flash, The Iron Hand, The Eviscerater, Armageddon and The Black Swordsman."

"But none of them have unique skills?" asked Eltelm, ducking under a branch as they headed away from the main path.

"Not that I know of. I've only seen Iron Hand and The Lightning Flash in combat and they didn't seem to have any unique skills."

"Who exactly are they?"

"The Eviscerater is notorious because he's a Player Killer," said Toji grimly.

"You mean, he actually murders people?"

"Yep. He lurks around the lower levels and ambushes people who stray out on their own. Personally I'm not sure he's even real from some of the stories I've heard. Supposedly he was able to kill someone inside a safe zone."

"That's impossible," snorted Eltelm.

"Exactly. The Iron Hand is a tank called Darius, he named himself after a character in a MOBA that went out of date a few years back."

"Oh, you mean the original League of Legends?"

Toji looked at him in surprise at his recognition of the outdated title, "yeah, that's the one. He keeps his costume as authetic as he can get it: gigantic pauldrons, massive steel axe, red cape, the works. Some people claim he even uses "Noxus will rise" as his battle cry. But I have my doubts about that last part," she added with a smile. "Armageddon's a jack-of-all trades type player, famous for soloing mini-bosses. He's in a guild nowdays called the Holy Dragon Alliance but he still likes to go off on his own to show off. Deadly with his hammer and bladed shield from what I've heard. Not sure what his proper name is. Then there's Asuna the Lightning Flash."

"Asuna? I remember her; she's been involved in every Boss fight since Floor 1. If that's what people are calling her I'd say the name is deserved."

"That's right. How do you know her name?"

"I was partied with her during the fight against the first Boss. I took notice of her skills at the time and I've taken a point of watching for her at the Boss fights."

Toji grinned, "from what I hear she's quite the looker. I can understand that you might be watching for her."

"Oh shut up," growled Eltelm playfully. "What about the last one? The Black Swordsman?"

"I'm not really sure. He's been at all of the Boss fights as well from what I've heard. All I know is that he's a soloer with what some people describe as inhuman reaction time. Recognisable by his black coat and hair."

"Sounds pretty mysterious to me. Let me think, black coat and hair with sharp reflexes? Oh, you mean Kirito."

"You know him too?" asked Toji unbelievingly.

"Well yeah, he was the other guy in the party for Floor 1. He ended up acting all weird after the fight was over and then walked off. He's always really quiet at the Boss fights, but he's probably the fastest swordsman I've ever seen as far as reaction times go. Asuna's faster when she attacks, but her reactions can't match his."

"They say he's the furthest ahead in levels in all of SAO," said Toji as they emerged into a clearing. "All right then," she said, turning to face Eltelm, "open up your menu and let's see what you've got."

Obediently Eltelm swiped the air to open his menu. He flicked through to where he now knew with reasonable confidence his skills were listed and Toji peered over his shoulder to read the name's in the list. "Wounding Strike, Shattering Vengeance, Disruption, Destiny, Triple Strike, Guard Breaker, Sweeping Blade, Penetration, (scroll down will you?) Indomitable, Burning Strike, Immobilise and, Solar Strike. Hmm, pretty normal up until that last one. You're lucky; that's kind of rare."

"Great," said Eltelm, "but uh, what does it do?"

"It surrounds you with an aura of bright light that reduces all incoming damage by 10%. Your next attack channels that energy into an enhanced attack that ignores 30% of your target's armour. It also has a massive explosion of light at the end that doesn't do any damage but can disorientate some people."

"That sounds cool. How do I activate it?"

"Stand with your feet shoulder width apart," said Toji stepping back so that she could see him properly. "Hold your sword so that the edge is in line with your nose and you have it pointing straight up." Eltelm carefully brought his blade into position. He stuck out his tongue briefly and went cross-eyed. Toji laughed, "you're supposed to look dramatic, not retarded. Now, focus on the weapon and try to imagine the name in your mind."

"Solar Strike right?" checked Eltelm. Toji nodded and Eltelm breathed in deeply and focused as intently as he could on the weapon. But nothing happened. "It isn't working," he pointed out unnecessarily.

"Oh how stupid of me of course it won't!" exclaimed Toji, slapping herself in the forehead. "The ability names are programmed in English not in German. Try thinking Solar Strike instead of Solarstreik." Eltelm nodded and adjusted his thoughts to match. Suddenly the sword blade began to glow a brilliant white and a halo of white light surrounded his vision. He suddenly felt a rush of energy powering through him and with an excited cry of aggression he slashed forwards at one of the trees on the edge of the clearing. The light from the halo was pulled towards his sword blade and exploded against the tree.

Eltelm turned back grinning as the immortal object notice flashed against the tree's trunk. Toji was rubbing her eyes. She looked up at Eltelm and shook her head, "dam, that thing is bright," she said.

"That was awesome!" exclaimed Eltelm. "Teach me how to do the rest please!" Toji smiled and obliged him. The other skills weren't anywhere near was cool as Solar Strike, but they were still pretty exhilarating to use, and it looked like they would be pretty effective.

"You know," said Toji in a pondering tone of voice as Eltelm executed his Burning Strike ability for the third time in a row, "I don't think I've seen anyone's sword glow white before. Blue, red, yellow, green, those are all pretty standard. Mine are purple-which is a pretty big coincidence by the way-but I've never seen anybody whose attacks are white before."

"Well, you can't have seen everyone. It's probably just a rare colour," said Eltelm with a dismissive shrug.

"Probably," agreed Toji. She let a long sigh, "well, I don't suppose there's anything else you need explained to you?"

"No," admitted Eltelm, "but I'd appreciate some company while grinding."

"Is that a date?" asked Toji with a teasing smile.

"What? Uh, no, uh I mean um..." Eltelm's voice trailed away and he turned bright red.

Toji laughed. "Don't worry I know what you meant," she said.

 _"Well that makes one of us,"_ thought Eltelm.

"But I'm two whole levels below you," said Toji, "I'd never keep up."

"I'm four levels ahead of the Floor minimum," pointed out Eltelm, "you wouldn't get killed or anything."

"But I'd slow you down in combat," she protested.

"I don't mind. Besides, with me you'd be able to take out monsters higher than what you'd normally be capable of beating. You'd get great EXP."

"Thanks for the offer, really," said Toji and her face clearly expressed disappointment, "but I don't really grind in the dungeon. I mostly stick to the fields and that would just be a waste of your time. I've only turned up for one Boss fight: on Floor 9 and I wasn't very much use at the time."

"Well, could we at least meet up and talk at some point or something. Sorry if this sounds weird or whatever but, I get lonely."

"Nothing weird about that," said Toji. "I don't own a house so I just sleep at the main inn of the primary town of whatever floor I'm on. Add me to your friends list so you can come find me if you need someone to talk to. Also, you can prove to me you've learned your lessons properly."

A little nervous that he'd get the process wrong Eltelm opened the menu and pressed the appropriate buttons. When he got to the selection list he saw over a dozen player names, none of which he could read. "Which one are you?" he asked. She pointed to the one at the top of the list and Eltelm tapped on the name. A small pop-up appeared in front of Toji and she tapped the accept button. Toji's name appeared on Eltelm's hitherto empty friend's list.

"Double tap on that and it'll show you wherever I am in Aincrad," she explained.

"How will I read it?" Eltelm asked.

"Can you recognise Japanese numbers?" Eltelm nodded. "Then you can find which Floor I'm on. Tap on the follow button (its green with a pair of foot prints) and you'll get a signal pointing to where I am. Easy enough?"

"I think so. Oh yeah, how much do I owe you?"

Toji blushed, "don't worry about it, it's on the house."

"You said money was tight, besides I probably owe you my future SAO career. I have to give you something."

"Well, I'm sure a hundred thousand Col would be fine," she said sarcastically.

"Okay," said Eltelm nonchalantly, flicking to the trade menu.

"Wait are you serious?" she gapped.

"Of course. I've only spent a handful since I started so I've still got most of the Col I've ever earned. A hundred thousand would be about a fifth of my savings."

"I, I wasn't serious. If you're really going to pay me then a thousand's fine."

Eltelm couldn't help but smile at the shocked look on her face as he opened the trade menu and transferred five thousand to her. "Thanks," she said.

"You're welcome," said Eltelm, bowing. "It's been, fun."

"Yeah, I'd say so too. Do you have anywhere to sleep?"

"Well I know there's a nice spot by the lake so long as it doesn't rain again."

Toji rolled her eyes. "That's a no then. Come on, I'll rent you an inn room."


	7. Chapter 6

Chapter 6: Though I walk through the Valley...

Max Floor: 19 Level: 30

"...Of the shadow of death I will fear no evil," Eltelm murmured to himself. It was a bible verse from the Psalms if he remembered rightly, and it seemed unpleasantly appropriate right now. The ravine before him was filled with a swirling faded blue-green mist, and the rocks overhead closed off the sun after a few dozen steps. There was still a ghostly illumination however, as the mist itself seemed to be luminescent. The Silent Hunter swallowed nervously and clutched the hilt of his sword tightly.

Toji had told him about this side quest the last time he'd payed her a visit. Apparently there was a powerful mini-boss in Floor 16 that appeared suddenly less than a week ago. Because all of the higher level players weren't prepared to bother with it and it was far too frightening a task for those lagging behind, it had gone untouched. According to NPCs the Valley of Tortured Souls was home to Apollyon, keeper of the keys. He was the master of torture and the dead but "feared the light with a passion". That implied any Sword Skills based around light would have a great effect on him and Eltelm was becoming a specialist in that field.

Since Toji had shown him his initial list he'd added Rays of Fortitude (three seconds of invulnerability), Blessing of the sun (restored 50% health to the target) and Heavenly Wroth (an AoE blast of brilliantly bright light that did significant damage). To Eltelm's surprise all of these abilities were rare, none of them having been given to the same player. "You're becoming the Warrior of Light instead of the Silent Hunter," Toji had said.

Eltelm wondered if that was a coincidence. Since Kayaba was the GM and thus in control of everything, he could probably manipulate events however he chose. It was possible that he was trying to prompt Eltelm in a certain direction. "Stuck up bastard probably thinks he's a god of some kind," muttered Eltelm. Brushing his thoughts aside he drew his sword and strode forwards into the 'Mists of Death'.

The first thing he noticed was that it was very cold. Not quite what he'd call freezing temperatures, but it was cold all the same. He shivered and wrapped his cloak more tightly around him, to no effect. He glanced up at the top left hand corner where his health bar was. There was a small debuff icon that said 'Mists of Death'. Besides the cold Eltelm didn't feel anything wrong with him, but then, maybe that was the debuff. The ground was rocky and cracked apart. Eltelm had to watch his footing as he proceeded down the steadily narrowing ravine. Eventually he was swallowed up by the darkness and the only light came from the pale glowing mist surrounding him.

Eltelm gave a start as a scream suddenly blasted at him, as loud as if it were being made right in his face. The jump scare sent his heart racing and he cursed under his breath. "I hate horror games," he muttered. That was the first scare of many. After a while Eltelm felt he was about ready to crack and teleport home, but he kept walking. _"The reward for beating this had better be good,"_ he fumed silently.

Eventually he came out into a space about twenty meters by ten. There was a four metre tall stone statue in the middle of the room, tinged green by the eerie light and the faint wisps of mist that floated up from the floor. It was a man in full armour, with a face like a skull. In his left hand he held a metre tall cage on a chain. Inside was what appeared to be a person, their skin stretched tightly over their bones and shrivelled muscles. Eltelm shivered, _"glad that's not me."_ In his right hand the figure clutched a scythe.

 _"Oh great, another impossible in real life cliché weapon,"_ Eltelm groaned inwardly. Of course, the weapon would probably work just fine in-game.

A voice that sounded very old and wheezy, but at the same time deep and menacing, as if age had veiled over the owner's former strength, spoke out from the darkness around him. "Sorry," muttered Eltelm, "your words are falling on deaf ears. Well, ears that can't comprehend anyway." As if provoked by his words the voice screamed and cracks began to spread up the statue.

Eltelm readied his sword. The man depicted by the statue looked formidable, this would be quite a challenge. To his surprise though, the armoured figured crumbled away into dust. He'd been expecting the stone to fall away like a kind of shell, revealing the still 'living' warrior beneath it. The cage fell to the floor with a clatter. The stone bars cracked and splintered and suddenly the trapped victim leapt forwards with a screech.

Eltelm was knocked backwards but managed to recover his balance fairly quickly. Two health bars appeared above the mutilated figure's head, as well as a name: Apollyon, First Key. _"First? Am I going to have to beat this guy multiple times?"_ wondered Eltelm before the demented looking man sprang at him.

Activating a skill Eltelm sent his enemy flying backwards and away. Apollyon howled as if in pain, and two chains suddenly shot up from the ground. They wrapped around Eltelm's ankles and pulled him to the floor. The ghoul like creature leapt onto him and rabidly bit into his neck. Eltelm watched in horror as his health bar steadily drained down. With difficultly he managed to shove Apollyon off of him and stagger to his feet.

Now the Boss's eyes glowed like green flames and the chains became gigantic snakes. Eltelm decided now was as good a time as any to test the theory that the Boss was vulnerable to light attacks and activated Solar Strike. Immediately Apollyon howled with pain and covered its eyes, the two snakes dissolving away into nothingness. The mists around Eltelm retreated and the cold vanished. With a fierce war cry Eltelm ran the Boss through with his sword, the energy from his halo of light channelling into the attack and blasting out into a bright nova.

Apollyon gagged and choked, staggering away from him. To Eltelm's amazement, its first health bar was already empty. "You really don't like light do you?" he muttered. With the sword skill over, the mists pulled back and the debuff returned. Since he'd put Solar Strike on cooldown Eltelm was forced to resort to more spamable skills. He performed a triple strike to follow up, and then simply rammed his blade as far as it would go into the Boss's chest. It screamed in pain, before exploding into bright shards.

"That wasn't so bad," said Eltelm. Then, just as he was starting to get his breath back the shards were all pulled back towards an epicentre and fused together into a new figure. _"Me and my big mouth,"_ he groaned inwardly. The new Boss was called Apollyon, Second Key. This time he was an old man dressed in battered looking armour and holding a sword with a worn black kite shield on his left arm.

The Second Key attacked like an ordinary player would, slashing out with his sword whilst holding his shield in a position where it could still comfortably protect him. Eltelm parried the blow easily and began to circle around his enemy, looking for an opening in his guard. AI were predictable usually, you just had to find the patterns. The Boss continued to attack with impressive speed and precision, and it was a real challenge to deflect all of the oncoming hits. Eventually Eltelm decided that this enemy was just designed to keep attacking normally and decided to go on the offensive.

Pulling his blade back over his shoulder he charged Guard Breaker. With a cry he unleashed the sword skill and cracks appeared all over the Boss's shield. With a satisfied smile Eltelm attacked, striking at the Second Key's head. The old man parried the strike and attempted to shield bash Eltelm forcing him to jump back. Gritting his teeth he charged back in again, more or less grappling with the Boss and forcing its shield to the side before activating his AoE strike. The glowing red cut spread across the Second Key's face as it staggered backwards. "3, 2, 1 aaaand," the cut exploded with a bright flash of light, sending the Boss sprawling onto its back.

Eltelm noted with satisfaction that its first health bar was now empty. As the Boss climbed back to its feet Eltelm charged up wounding strike and as the old man staggered to regain its balance he dashed forwards. After the first more powerful cut Eltelm followed up with six more, the first two of which smashed against the already damaged shield, breaking it apart. With a cry of triumph Eltelm stabbed the Second Key through the heart, draining its second health bar to zero.

He stepped back as the Boss exploded into shards. Just as before the shards rekindled into Apollyon, Third Key. This time it was a man in his thirties wearing what was clearly the same armour as the old man, but far less worn. His face was haggard and unshaven, his eyes sunk some ways into his head. _"I'm seeing this person's descent into madness in reverse,"_ Eltelm realised.

The Third Key raised its sword and a green bolt of lightning shot from the end. Hitting Eltelm in the chest it sent him flying backwards several metres. He glanced at his health as he climbed back to his feet. It was at about 50% after the lightning bolt. _"That's manageable,"_ he concluded, _"Provided there aren't too many more Keys to fight after this one."_ Shaking himself slightly and involuntarily shivering at the cold of the mist debuff, Eltelm resumed his stance.

Seeing that Solar Strike was off cooldown, he took up the appropriate posture and charged the halo of light. This time, whilst the mist still pulled away from him and he no longer felt cold, the Boss merely covered his eyes and looked away from the bright light. His health bar didn't fall unlike the First Key. _"He's less vulnerable because he's less twisted,"_ Eltelm realised. _"Oh well, the damage should still work just fine."_

Silently this time he charged his opponent who brought up his shield just in time to take the brunt of the blow. However, since the skill partially ignored armour, some of the damage did get through and Eltelm was pleased to see the Boss's first health bar drop into the yellow zone. He followed up with an AoE blast that temporarily forced the Third Key to cover his eyes at the bright light. Diving forwards Eltelm rammed his blade into the Boss's throat. In response the ragged knight smashed his shield into his chest, sending him sliding backwards.

The Third Key's first health bar was now empty, though Eltelm's health bar had now dropped to around 40% from the shield bash. Casting Blessing of the Sun Eltelm healed himself back into the green zone. With its first health bar empty the Boss's eyes began glowing green as did his sword. The Third Key rammed its sword point first into the ground, spreading a fiery crack over the ground towards Eltelm.

He threw himself to the side and then charged in. Throwing out a knock-up he disrupted the Boss's next sword skill and then executed a triple strike to deal some solid damage. The Third Key slashed at Eltelm but he managed to parry the blow. The Boss charged up its sword and lashed out with a second lightning bolt attack that Eltelm was forced to dive to the ground in order to dodge. He then buried his sword up to the hilt inside of his enemy's chest. As ripped it out he lashed out with a wounding strike, dropping the Third Key's health to zero.

Eltelm stepped back as the warrior exploded into brilliant shards. He let out a long sigh as the figure reformed into Apollyon, Fourth Key. As the figure-now dressed in gleaming steel armour and dazzling bright blue clothes-formed together Eltelm shivered. The face starring back at him with two health bars above it was his own. "Stuff you Kayaba," he muttered. The concept behind the Boss was suddenly painfully obvious. You fought against yourself, watching your descent into madness in reverse. Of course, this Boss was not him; for one thing it was dressed and armed differently. Still, seeing his own face on the target was a little disconcerting.

The Fourth Key's sword glowed brilliant blue and he swung it, releasing a wave of bright energy that knocked Eltelm off his feet and brought his health bar rushing down to 50%. As you might expect, the Boss had grown stronger each time around. _"It's not as strong as a Floor Boss though. Plus I'm several levels ahead of it; I can do this."_ Activating his three seconds of invulnerability Eltelm charged forwards, executing his knock up, triple strike and wounding strike all in quick succession.

With a cry of rage as its first health dropped down to a quarter full the Fourth Key rammed its sword into the ground. A massive explosion emanated out from the contact point hurling Eltelm against the wall of the chamber. He was glad that he still had the last few milliseconds of invulnerability left. The Fourth Key Blasted a lightning bolt at him and he dived underneath it.

Casting destiny to increase his damage for the next twenty seconds, Eltelm charged back into the duel. The two figures were a flurry of blades for a minute or so, both striking and blocking rapidly. The Boss however didn't have reflexes to match the human player and steadily its first health bar was whittled away. As its first health bar hit zero Eltelm scrambled backwards, expecting a transition to a new stage.

His concern was deserved as the Boss's skin was incinerated and it let out a scream. It height increased to four metres tall and a scythe appeared in its right hand. It name now read Apollyon, Keeper of the Keys. The figure now matched the statue exactly, and as Eltelm watched another health bar appeared below the first one. He groaned and grabbed a health potion from one his pouches, downing it hurriedly as the Boss finished its stage transition with several words he couldn't understand.

Eltelm breathed heavily and waited for the Boss to make the first move. Apollyon let out a ghostly howl and swung his scythe, sending a wave of green light that passed through Eltelm. It didn't push him back but his pain receptors went nuts as the damage was dealt. He grunted in agony as Apollyon rushed forwards towards him, weapon held in both hands and poised to strike. Eltelm blocked the blow, and by casting an AoE sword skill pushed the scythe back.

Bringing his blade up in line with his face he activate Solar Strike and rushed forwards. Apollyon hissed at the bright light, staggering slightly. Eltelm leaped into the air, directing all of the energy of his halo into the attack. The resultant blast made the Boss howl in rage and Eltelm was shoved backwards by the butt of the scythe.

He whistled through his teeth as he saw that that attack alone had emptied the first of Apollyon's health bars. _"Unfortunately I can't do that again in a hurry,"_ he thought. _"Oh well, I suppose it cuts the time in half doesn't it?"_

Apollyon was suddenly engulfed in red flames and the mists surrounding Eltelm changed colour to match. Three red orbs materialised and began to orbit about the Boss's head and the scythe became a gigantic battle axe. It was time for the last round and Eltelm found himself genuinely worried that he might not be able to win it without Solar Strike.

Apollyon charged him, swinging his axe down. Eltelm dodged and slashed at the giant's ankles. The Boss brought his axe down to the ground, sending a fissure two metres wide towards Eltelm. The fissure exploded and sent him crashing backwards into the podium that the statue had been set on at the beginning of the fight. Eltelm glanced nervously at his health bar. It was down below 50% after that hit and he had yet to do more than scratch at the Boss's last one.

 _"Where's a tank when you need one?"_ he lamented bitterly before scrambling up into a stumbling charge. Smashing the axe swing aside with a sword skill Eltelm swung his blade down in a straight vertical line, sending an immobilisation wave into the Boss. To his horror a notification icon appeared, informing Eltelm that the target was immune to stuns. Cursing under his breath Eltelm stabbed his glowing blade into Apollyon's chest before pushing off with his feet.

He just barely slipped past the axe head and landed with a skid. Thank goodness for agility investments. That attack had managed to reduce Apollyon's health down to two thirds, but Eltelm was rapidly running out of steam. _"So far you've been holding back so that you'd be able to escape if you needed to." "Yeah, so what? I'd rather not die for a mini-boss." "You won't be able to beat it unless you go all in." "But it could kill me!" "It may kill you anyway. What exactly is the debuff the mists confer precisely?"_

With a sickening feeling in his heart Eltelm backed away, pulling out his teleport crystal. A small notification flashed over it as he held it. It read 'nullified' in English. Eltelm didn't know what nullified meant exactly, but he could put in a pretty fair guess. "Son of a bitch," he hissed. _"Still prepared to hold back?" "How the hell did you know?" "I didn't, you suspected though." "I bloody hate you." "Probably."_

Growling Eltelm pulled his sword back. The blade glowed brilliant white and he charged forwards. A massive explosion of light was flung out of it and impacted Apollyon in the face. The Boss howled as Eltelm rocketed towards it, sending out strike after brilliant strike. The Keeper struck out at him with his axe and Eltelm blocked it, holding his sword horizontally with a hand on each end in order to catch the axe blade. He tried to push the weapon back but his strength stat was too low. The two stood with their weapons locked like that for several seconds until the Boss withdrew its weapon and swung down for a second blow to shatter Eltelm's guard.

The two seconds it gave him were all he needed. He leapt up so that he was level with Apollyon's head. Activating penetration and destiny simultaneously Eltelm shoved his sword into the Boss's eye. The flaming orbs that had up until that point been passively orbiting the Keeper's head streaked towards him. Flames licked at Eltelm's flesh, but he wouldn't pull back. The Boss's health was falling rapidly but so was his own. _"I'm not going to make it!"_

Toji was lying sleepily under the pleasant midday sun of Floor 18. Suddenly a shadow fell over her and she opened her eyes irritably. Sitting up she saw a ragged and exhausted looking Eltelm. She opened her mouth to speak but before she could say anything he'd shoved an item at her. It was an amulet with a rainbow gem like an opal at the centre, set inside a silver frame. "Please tell me that piece of junk was worth it," Eltelm gasped.

"What the hell happened to you?" Toji asked as she opened up the item's description.

"I got stabbed, screamed at, bitten and set on fire. I wouldn't be talking to you now if my invulnerability hadn't come off cooldown at the last second. That was the longest Boss fight ever, in the history of Boss fights."

Toji bit her lip nervously as she read the description. "Well umm, I think the main reward from that was meant to be exp," she began cautiously.

"What does it say?" asked Eltelm grimly.

"Pendant of Apollyon. Cosmetic."

The roar of frustration that followed was apparently heard on every single floor.


	8. Chapter 7

Chapter 7: King of the Beasts Part 1

Max Floor: 25 Level: 37

"How long have we been here?" Eltelm asked.

"Only ten minutes or so," said Toji.

"Not in the dungeon," he said, rolling his eyes, "I mean in Aincrad."

"Oh, right. That makes a lot more sense," she agreed. She frowned for a moment, considering. "In a week's time it'll have been nine months."

"How much of our lives have missed? Do you have any siblings?" Eltelm asked, glancing over his shoulder back to where Toji walked. The pair were two amongst more than five dozen front line players. The constant clinking caused by so many armoured figures was amplified off the dungeon walls until it seemed deafening to Eltelm.

"No," she said, "I'm an only child."

"Last I knew I had one. My little brother; he'd be about eleven by now I suppose. I wonder how old he'll be when I get out. That's assuming I do."

"Why are you so gloomy?" Toji asked irritably. "We're about to reach a major milestone."

"Because, it's taken us nine months to reach Boss 25. That's only a quarter of the way up the tower. Plus, we can expect things to slow down when we reach the top. If it takes us nine months to clear 25 floors, we're going to be stuck here for two more years. I can't say I'm thrilled at the prospect."

Toji sighed, "try to look at the silver lining please?"

"That can be tricky when you spend each night in a ditch," Eltelm muttered.

"Hey," she said, putting her hand on his shoulder, "we're working on that all right? Give it a few more months and I'll have you talking Japanese like you were born in the country."

"Thanks," said Eltelm, managing to force a smile. He took her hand and gave it a slight squeeze. "I owe you a lot you know."

"Just don't get yourself killed today, that's all I'm asking."

"Don't worry," he said with a grin, "I'm not planning on it."

The raid party stopped in front of the usual pair of massive doors that marked the entrance to a Boss room. Eltelm looked over the assemblage of players. Most wore rag-tag combinations of the best gear available to them, but a few wore coordinated guild uniforms. Of course, only those in the top guilds could afford such uniformity. The three most prominent of these guilds were defiantly the Holy Dragon Alliance, the Iron Hearts and the relatively new guild Knights of the Blood Oath. Of course, there were several notable solo players as well, but Eltelm had noticed that their numbers had been steadily decreasing as time went on. More and more frontliners were banding together into groups as the dungeons became more difficult to face alone. By the time they reached the top there might not be any solo players left.

Of course, Eltelm was still on his own. He exchanged a nod with the other two most significant lone wolves on the front lines as the raid group spread out. The Black Swordsman, Kirito and the Golden Lion, Shal. Coincidently all three spoke different mother tongues. Kirito being Japanese, Eltelm German and Shal American. Of course, being an English speaker was still not particularly difficult. The estimate was that 15% of all players were from English speaking countries, and many of the Japanese players knew at least a little English.

Everyone stood around for a moment awkwardly. They looked from one to another as if expecting someone to say something. Eventually a shield wielding figure dressed in brilliant white red trimmed robes stepped forwards. Heathcliff, leader of the Knights of the Blood Oath and easily the strongest tank in the game currently placed his hands comfortably on his shield with the point pressed into the ground. He looked around at the assembled faces for a few seconds and when there were no objections to him assuming a leadership position he began to speak.

As he did Toji whispered the translation to Eltelm. "Greetings fellow front line warriors. Allow me to thank you all for turning out today for this significant occasion." The man spoke with a calm and clear voice, his face kind but firm. "I recognise the sacrifice all of you have shown you are willing to make by coming here today and I am sure that the many thousands trapped in this world would show you their gratitude if they were here to do so. Before us stands the entrance to the twenty-fifth Boss: Rakarl, King of the Beasts. As the other guildleaders will know we have been able to gather valuable information regarding the Boss's early attack patterns.

"It appears that this being the twenty-fifth floor the game designer chose to make the Boss a, shall we say memorable one. Rakarl himself is armed with a glaive as well as what appear to be an unlimited supply of throwing axes carried on his back. Scouts weren't able to discover any conclusive pattern to the times when he made use of them so we shall have to show caution.

"In addition he is capable of summoning Alpha Wolves and Lions at any time. These minions appear to be the same as when we encountered them on previous floors. Be careful though: they are spawned in great numbers and we do not know how the Boss's attack patterns will change once we break through to the last of its four health bars. I know you will all fight courageously. All tanks will of course be deployed to the front and Damage based players will hold back until opportunities present themselves. Any players at level 35 or lower would do best to engage the minions and allow the higher level players to handle the Boss. Good luck to you all."

"Was that a literal translation?" asked Eltelm sceptically as Toji finished.

"It wouldn't have made any sense to you if it was," she replied. "Besides, I think I captured his style of speech pretty well."

"So," said Eltelm looking at her nervously, "you're on minion clearing then."

"Eh," Toji shrugged, "I'm fine with that. I'm sure I'll be able to catch up enough in time for the next one."

"Don't feel rushed," said Eltelm.

"I can take care of myself you know," said Toji indignantly.

"I know, I know. I just don't want to lose my translator that's all," said Eltelm with a grin.

"Hey!" she snapped, punching him in the arm.

"Oh come on! The battle hasn't even started yet and you're trying to make me take health potions." The pair laughed quietly together as Heathcliff shoved the great doors open. The 60 or so players poured into the circular room, which looked like a massive ancient stone temple. Jungle creepers hung from the ceiling and grass grew between the slabs on the floor. Eltelm could even hear animal noises coming from beyond the edges of the temple grounds. Trees blocked all view beyond the stone carpeted circle.

The swarm of warriors rapidly began dividing into their various groups. The tanks flowed to the front while the squishier players took several steps back, or just stood where they were. The lower level players pooled around the flanks, Toji giving Eltelm's hand a quick squeeze before slipping away. Eltelm noticed that most people were gathered into their respective guilds, leaving about fifteen solo players standing alone. Naturally all of these players were damage oriented, or else a balance between offence and defence, since you couldn't solo effectively as a tank player. Instinctively the lower level soloers drew towards the back of the pack, leaving the most skilled ones at the front.

 _"Is that cowardice or common sense I wonder?" "Probably depends on the individual." "Hmm. Now what does our favourite homicidal maniac have in store for us this time I wonder?" "I'm not really sure if you could call Akihiko Kayaba a maniac. Seems more likely that he's a bit like you; he just wants a world of his own." "Yes well, I wouldn't put real people in it and force them to fight to the death now would I?" "I said like you, not the same as you."_

Heathcliff steped forwards, drawing his sword from its sheath attached to the back of his shield. Suddenly-as if the guild leader had just set off an invisible trip wire-a massive roar echoed throughout the chamber. The foliage at the far end of the room was shoved aside by a two metre tall figure. _"Surprisingly small for a Boss isn't he?"_ Eltelm thought. The name Rakarl, King of the Beasts along with four health bars materialised above the figure's head as it strode into the middle of the room.

It was a huge man-like creature, covered in short ochre coloured fur. A massive pair of canines jutted out from his mouth and his eyes burned with a green fire. A wolf skin was draped over his back with the head worn like a helmet, similar to an old Norse Berserker. In his right hand he clutched a weapon that was reminiscent of a glaive, but looked like it could just easily be called a halberd in Eltelm's opinion. Of course, most players wouldn't be able to tell the difference. In his left hand was clutched a single bitted axe. Banging his staff onto the floor Rakarl let out a bellowing roar. Ten massive hulking black wolves along with six even more gigantic lions appeared on either side of him, snarling angrily before leaping forwards to attack.

Heathcliff pointed his sword forwards and cried "Shūgeki!" Eltelm wasn't quite sure what that meant, but the general idea seemed pretty obvious, as the other soloers around him ran forwards.

"Venetai," muttered Eltelm to himself. Good fortune. Grasping his sword hilt tightly he sprinted forwards.

The low level players rapidly closed in on either flank, their own tanks quickly agroing the minions towards them with throwing weapons, or simply by charging into them. Rakarl swung his polearm at the first row of tanks that were moving towards him and to the amazement of those watching sent all but a few of them flying backwards. A glowing aura showed that Heathcliff had already been forced to activate Divine Blade. The tanks who had been felled climbed unsteadily back to their feet. Their health bars didn't look to be badly affected, but that swing had completely shattered the initial attack.

Instead of holding back for the raid party to charge him Rakarl roared and dashed into the middle of the group. As he did so he hurled the axe clutched in his left hand at a swordsman dressed in the blue and red of the Iron Hearts. The weapon struck deep into the player's right side and he gave a cry before falling to the ground. Rakarl sprinted past the vulnerable player uncaringly and leapt into the air. As he landed he stabbed his blade into the centre of the chest of a Knight's player who screamed in horror before exploding into bright shards. Everyone gasped. That player had been one with very little armour, but that was still a one hit kill.

Heathcliff shouted something in Japanese before charging the Boss with his shield down. Rakarl was knocked to the floor by the assault and his agro was instantly fixed on Heathcliff. Eltelm glanced quickly to see the player with the axe imbedded in them being dragged to safety by one of his comrades. _"Well, at least the axes aren't as deadly as his primary weapon,"_ he thought before running towards the target.

Naturally he was not the first one to reach it. A plethora of other damage players had made their strikes and backed off by the time Eltelm arrived to deliver a wounding strike. A few more players landed blows before the King of the Beasts made another massive knock back swing, sending every player bar Heathcliff onto their backs. Leaping into the air, Rakarl spun his staff several times above his head before landing with a huge boom. A shockwave rippled out from his position, knocking up everyone in the chamber and Eltelm noticed nervously, dealing a noticeable amount of damage.

Rakarl threw back his head and roared in triumph as his enemies clambered awkwardly back to their feet. "Dam, what is it with this guy and knock ups?" muttered Eltelm. Eltelm's mouth dropped open as he saw even Heathcliff picking himself back up from the floor. His health bar didn't look like it had taken any real hit but still.

The tank players circled Rakarl nervously now, each one clearly waiting for someone else to make the first move. Eltelm glanced from left to right. No one was moving. Then, just off to his right he heard somebody sigh in frustration and a dark shape dashed out from the ring surrounding the Boss. Rakarl brought his glaive up in time to block the attack however despite the speed of it. Snarling he heaved backwards and Kirito skidded over the stony floor.

Shrugging to himself Eltelm threw caution to the winds and dashed in after the Black Swordsman, his brilliant white blade leaving a trail behind him. Seeing him coming Kirito leapt back, allowing the slightly more defensive player to lock the Boss's agro. Eltelm clashed his weapon up against Rakarl's, sending white sparks flying as the sword skill's damage was absorbed by the block. Before he had time to switch agro Kirito was streaking past and drawing his sword multiple times over Rakarl's back.

Encouraged by the display of the two solo players several others charged in, taking the agro and allowing Kirito and Eltelm to take several hurried steps back. Kirito made several rapid signs in the air which Eltelm recognised as belonging to the universal code. A few basic gestures had been agreed upon since the beginning of the game that could be used to communicate combat information across the language barriers. "Thanks for following," signed the black haired swordsman.

"Thanks for taking advantage," Eltelm signed back.

It looked like the Boss wouldn't activate his knock back ability so long as the number of players attacking him didn't exceed a certain number. So naturally the players proceeded to attack in waves. Rakarl would regularly bang his weapon on the ground in an effort to summon aid from his animal companions, but these would always be intercepted by the low level players. Eltelm dashed back in again, setting off his triple strike combined with destiny. Rakarl span on his heel to face the new threat, but he was already backing away as a new player wielding a war hammer charged in and clocked him over the back of the head.

The Boss's health was steadily being depleted. It looked as if they had found the pattern and now all the players needed to do was follow it. Still, Eltelm couldn't help but feel this was too easy. Now that they'd switched to the new tactic only a few hits had been taken, and none of them were life threatening. This was the Floor 25 Boss, a hallmark one you would think. Surely there had to be more to it than this?

As the first HP bar trickled down to the zero mark he was proved right. A golden light surrounded Rakarl, heralding a massive shockwave which blasted all nearby players down, though thankfully seemed to do very little damage. The Boss's height slowly began to increase until he stood at three metres instead of the initial two and his weapons grew to match.

Seizing a throwing axe Rakarl hurled it into the midst of the crowd of players and someone cried out in pain. The golden furred giant swung his glaive, but this time no shockwave proceeded from the end. The blade cut through the front rank of players, forcing back the tanks and severely wounding the DPSs. Two of these players exploded into shards before the sweep was finished. The risk level had just gone up.

Now while Rakarl would still lock his agro onto a single target, it would not switch away until twenty full seconds were up. To make matters worse, if a player with agro locked on them tried to scramble away an axe would quickly fly to take them in the back. The previous strategy was now completely null and void, since only tanks or the more skilled defenders could survive combat with Rakarl for the full duration of the agro.

After two more players had been killed a new tactic was established. Even though it wasn't possible to switch the agro of the Boss away from the softer targets, it was possible to body block the Boss. Tanks were forced to shove themselves straight into the face of the Boss while others did damage. Of course, Rakarl didn't ignore the tanks that were holding him in position. After a few seconds he would make a knock-back swipe to force the tank aside and a new one would have to dash forwards until the twenty seconds were up. The tanks were granted a brief respite when the stronger defenders engaged since they could take care of themselves.

Eltelm found to his frustration that Rakarl (like may Bosses) was immune to stuns and knock ups. Thankfully he was not immune to sheer brute force. He threw a series of rapid blows against the Boss's guard, forcing it to play defensive. With the Boss thoroughly pushed back Eltelm launched out a series of stronger attacks, his brilliant white blade leaving glowing red gashes across the target's body. The entire time Eltelm had been steadily counting down, and as he reached eighteen seconds he yelled out, "switch!" before dealing the strongest blow he could and scrambling back. A lightly armoured player with a katana dashed in as he stepped back and took his position.

Eltelm shook himself as he watched battle continue and waited for his next turn. Glancing around the chamber he was pleased to see that the mobs had been handled so well by the low level players that most of them were simply standing around watching, passing out health potions or helping wounded players back to the safety of the doors.

A gentle nudge to his right arm made Eltelm snap to the side a lot faster than was necessary. Startled Toji took a step backwards, instinctively raising her shield. "Oh, sorry," Eltelm gasped hastily, "I'm just a little stressed right now."

Toji nodded understandingly and looked towards where the katana wielder was stepping back to allow a tank with a huge cleaver like weapon to step forwards, along with a dark haired girl holding a rapier. "We're doing well so far it seems," she said.

Eltelm grimaced, "maybe. But we've already taken higher casualties than any other previous Boss fight and it isn't over yet. It seems like Floor 25 was a difficulty spike as far as the Boss was concerned."

Toji bit her lip nervously, nodding. As the pair watched the current pair retreated and Shal threw himself into the fray, his tall golden shield smashing into Rakarl's chest, followed quickly by his mace. "They're all so strong," said Toji nervously eyeing the gathering of higher tier players. "How am I ever going to be able to survive to the end of this game if they can die?"

Eltelm looked at her sharply. "Don't say things like that," he said. To his own surprise there was a hint of anger in his voice. "Everyone makes mistakes; no matter how skilled they are no player can be considered invulnerable. It's a bad idea to compare your survival chances to other people based on skill in battle alone. Besides, you're not going to die," he added firmly.

"What makes you so sure?" asked Toji, looking at him with a mixture of nerves and curiosity.

"I'm not going to let you," said Eltelm simply.

"Wait, what?"

Before any more words could be exchanged Shal shouted "switch!" and Eltelm dashed to the front of the battle again, leaving Toji staring after him.

As Eltelm's sword blade was smashed viciously against Rakarl's glaive handle his mind was elsewhere. _"It wasn't your turn you know." "I know." "What exactly did you mean by that?" "By what?" ""I'm not going to let you die"." "I'm not going to let her die." "I gathered that much. What makes her so special?" "She's the only friend I have in this world. I can't even speak with anyone else." "Only a friend?" "You're me, you know I'd like to consider her more than that. But I can't in justice expect her to reciprocate." "You really like to use long words don't you?" "Uh, I think you mean vocal utterances." "Sigh."_

With a roar Eltelm threw his sword up, lifting Rakarl's guard at the same time. His sword glowing Eltelm plunged the weapon into the Boss's neck. Rakarl howled before releasing a wave of golden energy. Eltelm fell away, involuntarily somersaulting backwards before sliding over the stone floor. That last stab had brought the Boss's second health bar down to zero. The third phase of the fight was about to begin. Every player was scrambling backwards in an effort to put as much distance between themselves and the King of the Beasts as they possibly could.

Rakarl didn't increase in size this time, instead his fur thickened out and became a darker brown. A stripped pattern appeared along either side of his chest, legs and arms and a second blade appeared on the back end of the glaive. The Boss opened his new phase by spinning around in a circle, sending out a spray of throwing axes in all directions. Most people simply threw themselves to the floor rather than risk taking the hits. Eltelm was already on the floor, and saw one of the axes fly over his head. If he'd flipped back to his feet he would have been hit.

The Boss growled and charged into the disorganised raid group, spinning his double bladed weapon. Players scrambled and dived out of the way as he smashed through the flimsy line of defence. A tank rushed forwards to take agro, blocking Rakarl's attack and stabbing at him with his spear. As the Boss pounded away against the tank's shield Asuna sprinted in front the side, the blade of her rapier shining red. Before she could reach the target though, Rakarl span on the spot and slashed at her, the blade just barely missing Asuna and causing her to slip up and fall onto the floor. The Boss clearly no longer had agro focused onto any specific target. He raised his double bladed pole arm to stab it into Asuna's chest, but the nimble player rolled to the side in time to dodge the downwards thrust. Flipping back to her feet she sprinted away, a tank diving forwards to take the axe that was hurled in her direction on his shield. The force of the blow sent him skidding backwards, several small cracks forming in his shield.

With his target out of his reach Rakarl scanned the crowd of players for a split second before attacking again. The target was an unlucky supporter from one of the lesser guilds. Seeing the Boss heading for him he simply turned his heel and ran. "No wait, don't run!" Eltelm cried, but of course it was already far too late. The axe embedded itself between the player's shoulder blades. He fell to the floor and lay still for a few moments before exploding into shards.

Heathcliff shouted something, holding his sword high in an effort to draw attention. In response players poured away from Rakarl grouping towards the front of the chamber near to the door. The only ones that stayed were the highest level players who were either at or above the safety margin of 35. With the weaker targets all having been removed Rakarl switched targets, charging a female long sword wielder dressed in black and green. In response Heathcliff neatly slipped himself between her and the oncoming attack, taking the blow on his shield.

The next phase of the Boss fight was far more dangerous than the two previous ones. Not only was the damage output increased, but Rakarl now selected and changed his target on the fly, meaning that locking agro was totally impossible. The weakest targets were focused on and if any other player attempted to engage the attack would be met with a knock back before Rakarl returned his attention to his original target. As a result any players that couldn't hold their own were forced to fall back. No specialists bar tanks remained, only intermediate players could hold on. As a result over half of the players still fighting were soloers.

If a multi angle attack could be carried out fast enough then the Boss would be unable to respond, but most players couldn't manage the speed or coordination required. As a result players would be forced back and hammered on until they had no choice but to run for it. Heathcliff and the other tanks did their best to interpose themselves between the Boss's attacks and their intended targets, but often it was in vain.

Eltelm lit up his blade and rushed in, ducking the reaction swing and stabbing his sword into Rakarl's leg. Withdrawing the weapon he jumped to the right to avoid the knock-back attack and slashed several times at the Boss's middle, leaving a criss-cross pattern of red across his stomach. Rakarl then attempted to drive him back by spinning his weapon in front of himself. The circle created was thrust in Eltelm's direction, forcing him to scramble backwards.

Unwilling to lose the Boss's attention Eltelm activated his few seconds of invulnerability and dived into the whirling mass of blades. The weapon sliced at his front but was deflected by the protective aura. Eltelm thrust his sword into Rakarl's chest before ripping it out and smashing it against the double bladed glaive. "A little help?!" he shouted over his shoulder towards the rest of the raid party.

A few seconds later and four other players had detached themselves from the circle surrounding the Boss and rushed into the fight. Eltelm let out a long breath of relief as he stepped back and allowed Heathcliff and Shal to hold the Boss's weapon in check. Rakarl snarled viscously, trying to attack the two other players who danced around him, striking at his weak points. These two were Kirito and a player Eltelm didn't recognise with auburn hair that he had tied back in a long braid. The thought crossed Eltelm's mind for a moment that he was familiar, but he couldn't remember when he'd seen him before. _"He's probably been in previous Boss fights,"_ he thought, shrugging it off.

Whoever he was he wasn't too bad. Wielding a warhammer with one hand and a shield in the other, he deftly lashed out and smashed the weapon against the Boss's knee. Rakarl snarled and span around to face the attacker, but before he could strike Heathcliff had already interposed himself. Angrily Rakarl hurled a throwing axe, but Shal slammed himself through the air to knock the weapon away with his shield.

Taking a deep breath Eltelm charged back into the fight. The next few minutes were among the most harrowing of Eltelm's life up until that point. The rush from the intensity of the combat had faded long ago, and now he only felt the burning of suppressed fear. He wanted to stop and get out of the combat, but if he stopped for a moment, not only would they not defeat the Boss, but he might be killed while his guard was down. The only option was to keep fighting for as long and as fast as possible.

Several new players stepped into the fight, and some of these cycled out with others. Heathcliff, Eltelm and Kirito however remained constantly engaged. Kirito and Heathcliff because they were probably the two strongest players in the game and couldn't be spared, Eltelm because he was afraid that if he stopped for even a second he wouldn't be able to start again.

He could feel the weariness penalties building up as an ache over his entire body growing stronger and stronger. He pushed the feeling down fiercely and kept fighting but he felt that he couldn't keep this up for much longer. Parrying a swing from the double blades he finally staggered and fell. "Dam it!" he hissed under his breath. Roaring Rakarl stabbed downwards. Eltelm shut his eyes as the pain lanced through him, centralising from the pit of his stomach and spreading throughout the rest of his body. _"Is this it? It must be; no one should be able to survive being stabbed for more than a few seconds."_

Then, the pain stopped all of a sudden. It felt like a thorn being ripped out, painful in the process, but such a relief when it was done. Eltelm opened his eyes to see his health bar hovering around 5% in the red zone. A hand grabbed him by the hood of his cloak and pulled him backwards. Eltelm looked around to see who had knocked the attack out of the way. Heathcliff had his shield pressed up against the long double bladed glaive. As Eltelm watched he glanced over his shoulder in Eltelm's direction with narrowed eyes. Eltelm shivered slightly at that, it was almost as if the guild leader had just made a decision he was worried he would regret. Eltelm shook his head and decided he was imagining things.

The player who'd pulled him backwards and away from the fight was Shal. He looked down at Eltelm with a stern look. Shal was an adult in his late thirties and if Eltelm remembered correctly had a son waiting for him in the real world. His gaze seemed to match ones Eltelm could remember getting from his father. It was a "what were you thinking?" look. Eltelm looked down at the floor. Taking the hit had been his own fault. He should have backed out earlier. He wasn't of a high enough calibre to stay in the fight for so long without a respite.

Eltelm sighed and took out a health potion, hastily downing the red liquid. A rush that made him feel all light inside coursed through his body as he watched as his health bar returned to the yellow, then the green zone. He wasn't at full, but rather two thirds. Quickly casting his blessing he brought it up to full health. The feeling from health potions was apparently addictive for some players but Eltelm like most people was (thankfully) unaffected. There were players who dedicated their entire days to getting enough gold to purchase potions and get high on them. There was even an organisation founded by some of the older more responsible players to deal with people who had addictions. The game really was a lot like real life in many respects.

Pushing himself back to his feet Eltelm looked towards where Kirito was slashing a long cut down Rakarl's back. The hit took his second last health bar down to zero and Eltelm took a deep breath. The last phase was about to start and who knew what would happen then? Every player began to scramble towards the corners of the room as the Boss rose steadily into the air.

The wolf skin began to wrap itself around Rakarl's back, arms and legs. The fur covering the rest of his body grew longer and changed to become dark brown. The King of the Beasts fell to all fours, his head vanishing as it merged with that of the wolf skin. The name above the Boss's head changed: Rakarl, the King of Werewolves. The huge wolf was five metres long not counting the tail and three metres high from the shoulder. Its fur was a dark brown and its eyes a burning red.

Snarling the wolf sprinted across the room, heading for the weaker players grouped by the door. The lower level players all turned on their heels and ran back through the doors. The wolf snapped at their heels but didn't pursue them over the threshold. It then turned to look back at the higher level players who had retreated to the opposite end of the room. The monster now barred the way out of the chamber. Of course, there was the option to use teleport crystals, but not everyone had them at this early point; they'd only become available at level 30, and not everyone considered them a necessity. Most would have them, but not everyone. Those who were left behind would be ripped apart before they reached the doors.

Eltelm grimaced, clutching the hilt of his sword tightly. He looked about him at the group of fifteen or so players. They were the best in the game, but facing down the gigantic wolf they looked just as nervous as he did. Nervous, but in most cases determined. Heathcliff stepped forward so that he was ahead of the group, bracing his shield for a charge. Rakarl snarled and bounded across the room towards the tank. Counter charging Heathcliff bashed his shield against the beast's face, knocking it to the side and down.

Skidding slightly the Boss snapped at Heathcliff and turned its attention elsewhere. Deciding that the tank was too strong a target (at least for the moment) the wolf chose to pick on the first target without a shield its eyes fell upon. Eltelm could feel his heart melting as the monster leapt towards him.


	9. Chapter 8

Chapter 8: King of the Beasts Part 2

Max Floor: 25 Level: 37

Eltelm dived to the right, just evading the snapping jaws. Rakarl snarled and leapt at him again. Rolling to the side again Eltelm flipped himself back to his feet, flipping his sword around in his hands so that he was gripping the blade. To his surprise his weapon grew bright white as he drew back for the swing. A small notification appeared in the top right of his screen that he assumed was notifying him of a new sword skill. He wasn't even aware the murder stroke was even programmed into the game. Most people who didn't study sword play hadn't even heard of it. Making a small internal shrug Eltelm lashed out with the hilt of his weapon, clubbing the wolf over its head.

The swing exploded into a huge amount of power and Rakarl went flying. Spinning three times in the air the great wolf smashed against one of the pillars along the edge of the arena. Eltelm whistled to himself at the unexpected power of the attack. Sword Skills were of course the primary source of high damage, but this one was probably the most damaging Eltelm had ever used. That was confirmed by the chunk that had been knocked off of the Boss's health bar.

 _"How did I do that? I'm two levels behind Kirito who's the highest there is currently, and he doesn't have any skills that can do that kind of damage with one hit." "Yes, but Kirito doesn't fight the same way you do." "Are you saying it's unique?" "Probably not, but it's probably connected to your fighting style in some way. I mean, who else deliberately grabs hold of their blade while fighting?" "I can think about that later, right now I need to focus on the fight."_

Rakarl had climbed back to his feet. Looking at Eltelm with what he could have sworn was resentment the wolf decided to turn its attention elsewhere. It bowled over a Knights player armed with a battle axe who clubbed furiously at the monster's head to no effect. Grabbing him in its jaws the wolf shook the player back and forth several times before throwing him across the room. The axe wielder landed with a thud and slid for several seconds before shattering into bright shards. If that had happened at the start of the fight it would have elicited a gasp, but by this point no one was much surprised by the Boss's damage.

Before he could pick his next target Rakarl was charged by Shal, who smashed the wolf into the stone floor, his shield flashing a brilliant yellow. The creature scrambled up to its feet and began to move to attack, but before that was possible it was attacked from the other direction by the unknown player with the braid. The Boss span with a growl but was then promptly attacked by Asuna who slashed it ten times across its flanks. The sequence then continued with an attack from Adrian, the fabled Armageddon, followed by Kirito, a katana wielder with a bandana and the unknown from earlier with the warhammer.

Again and again Rakarl attempted to turn on his enemy, but every time he was attacked by a new foe who bought time for the first attacker to escape. The wolf might ignore more damage and be able to deal more out, but he no longer carried the double bladed glaive that allowed him to perform the knockbacks he needed to keep multiple players off of him. The front liners attacked again and again, slowly wearing the Boss's health down.

Finally, as the wolf's health reached the final 10% it roared and an energy wave emanated from it, throwing all of the players backwards. Six other wolves appeared alongside it, each one far larger than even an alpha wolf, though admittedly not quite as large as Rakarl himself. Each one was simply named Werewolf. With half a dozen snapping howls they set themselves amongst the players and several were wounded badly in the first few seconds of disarray. Thankfully no one was killed.

One of the werewolves leapt onto Eltelm, but he locked his sword blade into the creature's jaws and with some effort thrust it backwards. Each wolf seemed to be a mini-boss in its own right, though thankfully they only had the one health bar each. Eltelm hacked and slashed with some level of patience at the creature. It didn't have the power level to pose too much of a threat to Eltelm with other players around so it was just a matter of time until it went down. Eltelm eyed the position of Rakarl nervously, but several of the others seemed to have it tied down, though they were being forced to play defensively.

After a minute or so of cuts and stabs the werewolf exploded. Eltelm turned to look at where Rakarl was. The great wolf was snapping at the players nearby to it, angrily watching as its minions were shattered into fragments. Finally it roared and bounded towards the nearest target. Heathcliff simply held his shield in front of him and took the charge head on before stabbing his blade into the beast's head. Forcing the creature back he made several signs in the air, "last attack. All sides."

The answer came from all sides in three different languages, "Hai!" "Yes!" "Ja!" Ten swords, two axes, a mace and a warhammer flashed brightly as sword skills were channelled through them. In a dazzling blaze of fiery light Rakarl was cut to pieces from every direction. The King of the Beasts stood still for a moment, trembling slightly before imploding in a flash of light. A shower of gleaming fragments drifted down around the room like snow, and a massive title flashed across the air, announcing their success.

Eltelm's knees gave out and he sank to the floor, releasing the longest breath he hadn't known he was holding. He could suddenly feel every ache that the weariness debuffs had been sending through his body. With a groan he checked his health bar before pulling out a health potion to bring back up from half health. Slowly, he looked around him at the other players. The ones in guilds were looking forlornly at the points where their companions had died, while the soloers were all checking through their inventories to see what new items they'd acquired from the fight.

Eltelm flicked open his own inventory and checked for new items. To his disappointment there was nothing. He hadn't scored the last hit on any of the monsters defeated during the fight, so of course he hadn't received any drops from them as he wasn't in a party. He did note with a small level of satisfaction that his level had advanced to 38, and over half of the progress through to level 39 had been completed already. The EXP boost from the quarter way Boss had been pretty big.

With a grunt he pushed himself to his feet and turned to head for the stairs up to the next level. Before he'd gone more than two steps something barrelled into him. He was surprised to find Toji's arms wrapped around his neck. Suddenly she seemed to realise what she was doing and let go. "Oh, sorry about that," she said hastily. "I'm just glad you're alive."

"No, don't worry about it," said Eltelm. "I'm glad you're all right as well. That last part was pretty hairy. Pun intended."

"And terrible," said Toji with a roll of her eyes.

Before Eltelm could reply someone called out something from behind him. Eltelm turned to see Shal. The Golden Lion said something in English, but Eltelm could only understand a few words. "What did he say?" Eltelm asked Toji.

"What was that move you pulled back there when you grabbed the blade of your sword?" she translated. "What's he talking about?"

"A new sword skill that popped up unexpectedly during the Boss fight," Eltelm explained. "Can you tell him that I don't really know? It was a move I saw in some old fighting manuals. I've copied it a few times but it's never activated into a sword skill before."

Toji translated his words into English and Shal listened closely before frowning. He replied quickly and Toji translated back, "what is this skill called?" Eltelm flicked open his menu and went to his skill list. He scrolled to the only entry he didn't recognise and stood back so that Toji could read it. "Skull Breaker," she read. "It sounds rather grim when compared to your other skills doesn't it? They're almost all light themed."

Shal looked even more intrigued at the name and spoke again. "I've never heard that skill name before," translated Toji, "and neither have I. It's not, listed as unique is it?"

Eltelm shook his head. "No special notes or anything, just the name and a brief description of what it does. Check for yourself if you want."

Toji looked over the words and shook her head, "it doesn't make much sense to me. The idea of an attack that involves grabbing the blade seems silly to me, never mind a sword skill based around it."

Eltelm frowned, "it actually works remarkably well in real life. So long as you keep a firm hold your hands won't slide so you don't get cut."

"Regardless, it doesn't make sense. It doesn't even have any special effects just straight damage and knock-back. A lot of damage at that!" she gasped. "And it says it scales with level 100%! Most skills are designed to become obsolete over time and be replaced by others but this one looks like it was meant to stay. But it defiantly isn't unique, it's classed as a tier III so it's rare but not even exceptionally so."

Shal's mouth fell open as Toji translated the information to him. At this point several other players had come over and Toji soon had her hands full translating questions and responses. A few wanted to learn how to get the skill but were sorely disappointed when Eltelm told them it was a random activation. In the end it was decided that it was simply lucky that he'd gotten it before anyone else had. It didn't quite sit easy with Eltelm though, the ability just wasn't normal. _"Do you think it might have something to do with you know who?" "You mean Kayaba? I can't see why." "Well, if he's watching everything he's probably been paying you special attention. You're definitely not an ordinary soloer that's for sure." "You think he might have made sure I unlocked this skill? I have my doubts." "Eh, it is unlikely, but it's a far cooler idea." "Oh yes, and I suppose he's decided he wants me to be 'the chosen one' to fight the last Boss on Floor 100 in a 1v1 right?" "There's no need to be rude." "I'm talking to myself I can be as rude as I like. It's just a new skill that no one's ever seen before that's all. I probably got it because I'm one of the few players who'd know about using Murder Strokes." "Yeah, I suppose so. Still more boring though."_

Eventually players began to either flow up to the next Floor through the newly appeared doorway, or back to houses they'd purchased on lower floors. Eltelm looked over at Toji questioningly. "Shall we go on?" he asked.

"I don't see why not," said Toji with a bright smile.

The pair crossed the room and headed up the set of steps that lead out of the arena. They followed a short path through the thick foliage around the room until they came to a stone doorway that lead to a spiral staircase leading upwards. They climbed these stairs for about a minute along with a few other players, all eager to see the new Floor. Personally, Eltelm wasn't that excited to see new Floors. They didn't lose people in every Boss fight, but in this last one they'd taken heavy casualties. It was difficult to feel excitement for something so many people had had to die for. Of course, that didn't mean he wasn't curious.

The two came out on the 26th Floor and entered into a small group of other players who had stopped to look at the new view. Eltelm whistled as his gaze scanned over huge yellow pillars that created a crystalline forest. The sky wasn't the usual simulated sun and moon, but this time it was clearly a cave roof. The illumination came from the crystals themselves. They were everywhere around them, a glowing a warm yellow. It created an atmosphere not unlike sunlight, though since it came from the ground it was certainly rather strange.

"I wonder if the colour of the crystals changes to match the time of day," pondered Toji out loud.

"Maybe," said Eltelm, "It's certainly different."

One of the members of the group that was admiring the new view turned around to look at him. It was the unknown player with the braid. "Eltelm," he said in Japanese, "it's good to see you." Or at least that was Eltelm's best guess anyway.

Eltelm looked at him in surprise. He knew the young man's face was familiar, but he still couldn't place it. Suddenly his eyes lit up in recognition and he took the offered hand. "Lee-san!" he exclaimed.

"Yes," said Lee.

"You two know each other?" asked Toji in German.

"Sort of," explained Eltelm. "He explained to me what was happening on the first day. I'll admit I was pretty sceptical at first, but the reaction everyone had had to Kayaba and the fact that the logout button didn't work were pretty convincing elements. After a few days I stopped doubting pretty quickly."

Toji nodded, "I wondered how you'd figured that out by yourself."

"Do you mind translating for me?" Eltelm asked.

Toji sighed, "sometimes I feel like a piece of software."

"That's not what I meant!" exclaimed Eltelm.

"Relax," she said smiling, "I'm just kidding."

Eltelm and Lee's began their delayed back forth conversation, each waiting for their words to be passed on to the listener in a language they could understand.

"You've done very well for yourself it seems," said Eltelm.

"Thanks," replied Lee. "I became the head of a guild called the Arbiters. Things have gone pretty well for us so far. I've got to say though; I'm a lot more impressed with what you've managed. You're a major frontliner, despite being unable to speak either of the two main languages."

Eltelm shrugged at that. "I've got Toji to thank for that," he said putting a hand on her shoulder. "She speaks a wide range of languages and she's told me how everything works."

Toji blushed slightly as she passed on the message. She paused for a moment then made what sounded to Eltelm like a hasty addition. Lee nodded and smiled. "I agree with her," he said, "you shouldn't sell yourself too short. Back there you fought pretty amazingly. I've never seen anything like that move at the end before."

"That's just because it's new," said Eltelm, waving it off. "I'm sure other people will get it, or at least stuff like it over the next few Floors."

"I have a few friends in my guild who'd like to learn how to do it," said Lee. "Do you guys want to come with us and have a look around? The new minions here are bound to be tricky, assuming that Boss fight marked an escalation in difficulty. It certainly felt like it."

Toji looked like she was in favour of the idea. In his normal life Eltelm would have politely declined. He didn't like meeting new people, or being around large groups. He didn't even like to look people in the eye when he was talking with them. It usually felt, invasive somehow. A lot had changed for him over these past few months though, and he was happy to take all to company he could get. Even with Toji, he was still alone most of time. She wasn't able to party with him very much because due to his level he took on quests and enemies that were dangerously high difficulty for her. That meant he was still stuck fighting alone most days. Any companionship he could have, even if only for a short time was something he'd take.

"Bravo, switch!" cried Eltelm, knocking the crystal elemental backwards and shattering its bladed arms. Bravo-a dark haired girl of about nineteen with a spear-rushed in as Eltelm stepped back. She thrust the head into the joint between the elemental's head and torso. The blue crystalline man exploded into glowing shards that ironically matched his appearance. The young woman turned and smiled as Eltelm sheathed his weapon.

Behind him the six others either sheathed or lowered their weapons respectively. Lee slung his hammer on his belt and slipped his shield over his back. Toji sheathed her single handed sword but kept her shield out. Ironhand slung his axe over his back, Tails sheathed his long sword over his shoulder, Raven her khopesh and Typhus sheathed the dual knives at his sides.

Eltelm found himself smiling as he looked over the group. Even though e could only exchange snatch phrases with any of them without Toji to translate (especially Raven, who spoke primarily English) he found their company probably the biggest comfort he'd had in a long time. Toji prediction about the huge crystals had turned out to be right, as they now glowed a deep crimson to match the sun that would be setting on the other Floors. The aura it cast over the landscape of gleaming gems was breathtaking. It was like the world was on fire.

The others all looked around and took in the beautiful view as well, smiles spreading across their faces. Suddenly, Lee's face became more serious and he said something in Japanese that Eltelm couldn't make out. The message was quickly translated into English and German for Raven and Eltelm respectively. "I think this might be a good time for us to pay our respects to those of us who died back in the Boss room."

There were nods of agreement all round and the group all turned to stand facing the glowing fields of gems in respectful silence. As the red turned to pink and then to a deep purple and finally to a dark but luxurious blue Eltelm let his thoughts wander back over his time spent here. Nearly all of it consisted of clashing swords with various monsters, walking alone through dungeons or forests and sleeping under the shelter of trees or rocky overhangs. But there were good moments as well. Moments not unlike this one right here.

Then his thoughts went back further, to the life he'd had before SAO. For the first time ever, he wondered if that life was really better than the one he had now. Admittedly it was dangerous and he had to live rough but, here he was a warrior. He had a friend who was as close as any friends he'd ever had before, and the implication was he might be able to find a few more. In Aincrad he could do incredible things; defeat monsters, duel nearly anyone in this entire world and fight to rescue over eight thousand people. But then he remembered that his family would be waiting for him on the other side. Besides, he wouldn't necessarily lose the friends he'd made here. They were all out there in the real world somewhere. When this was over he'd simply find them all again. Firmly he decided not to ponder on such thoughts again; he needed to get home and be with his family and his old friends again, as well as his new ones.

Then, Lee took his hammer from his belt and placed the bottom of the handle against the stone floor beneath him. As brilliant sparks of white began to appear on the great gemstones the rest of the group took out their own weapons and rested the point on the ground, and their hands on the top. "Arigato," said Lee simply.

"Arigato," echoed the others.

 _"_ _Yes, we have to win this game at all costs. We have to go home." "Why?" "Because if we don't, then those sacrifices will all have been in vain. And that is something I cannot, no, I will not allow."_


	10. Chapter 9

Chapter 9: Enigma

Max Floor: 30 Level: 45

Toji had fallen asleep with her face in a book. Many real world novels had been converted into SAO as readable books. Toji had been leaning back in the chair in her inn room by a fire (since autumn was well on its way now and outside temperatures had begun to drop) reading a copy of the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes when she'd dropped off. She was awakened initially by a knock on her door. Her eyes flickered open blearily and she looked around. Not having actually heard the knock, she shrugged, yawned and stretched. She looked down at the page to try and see where she had left off.

Before she could resume reading however the door to her room burst open, causing her to more or less jump out of her virtual skin. Her reaction was certainly so sudden that it caused a slight FPS drop in the area around her as the game reacted messily to the unexpected movement. She'd accidently slipped up and fallen on the floor, and got up in a rather ill temper to see Eltelm looking around the room as if he expected it to be full of bandits. Indeed, he did have his sword drawn.

"What are you playing at?" Toji asked grumpily. Dusting herself off she picked up the book from where it had fallen and saving the page returned it to her inventory.

"You didn't answer when I knocked," explained the black cloaked teen. "I could see from my friend locator that you were in here, but you weren't moving. I thought, I don't know that someone had broken in here, or something," he finished lamely, realising how stupid it sounded as he said it.

"I wasn't moving because I was asleep you idiot!" exclaimed Toji. "Uh! Forget about it."

"All right then," said Eltelm pleasantly, "I came to get you because I need your help with-

"Hold on," interrupted the blonde, holding up a hand. "What are you supposed to do every time we meet?"

Eltelm groaned and rolled his eyes. "Good afternoon Toji, how are you today?" he asked in Japanese, his voice implying that he didn't give 0.5 Col what the answer was.

"Terrible," she replied in Japanese, "someone disturbed my sleep."

"I thought you said to forget about it!" spluttered Eltelm, switching back to his mother tongue.

"Oh never mind about that!" said Toji, waving her hand. "You did the revision right?"

"Yes I did the revision," said Eltelm, clearly impatient to get past this and to the point. For the last three months now, Toji had been giving him lessons in Japanese and so far he'd progressed well. He could very nearly hold a broken conversation with most other people, and he knew enough that he was able to rent out rooms from the NPC innkeepers.

"And you haven't been sleeping outside have you?" asked Toji sceptically.

"What are you my mother?" asked Eltelm, his tone nearing exasperation. "No, I slept indoors. Just like I have for the past month and a half. Now can I please get to the point?!"

"All right, all right," said Toji with a disinterested yawn. "Do you need me to come along and explain some complex quest for you or something?"

"Sort of," said Eltelm. "This time it's got nothing to do with the language barrier. At least not yet it doesn't."

Toji looked at him curiously. Eltelm didn't usually ask for help unless it was to do with a language problem. He could generally handle most combat situations he got himself into, and if he couldn't he'd usually just teleport out and deal with the target later when he was higher level. "What is it?" she asked curiously.

"Well uh," Eltelm now looked a little embarrassed. "The truth is Toji, you're a good deal smarter than I am. No, you are," he said, cutting over her before she could say anything to the contrary. "You're two grades ahead, speak ten languages including Latin, you practically built the Nerve Gear you're using right now and you know the entire periodic table off by heart! That's an awful lot more than I think I'll ever be able to do. The point is I've encountered a puzzle dungeon, and I can't get past it. I was hoping you might be able to help me with it."

Puzzle dungeons were often renowned for turning away even the best warriors empty handed. Even Kirito had gone away from a few with nothing to show for his trouble. Challenges that would have been simple in a normal video game were far harder to accomplish in a VR game. Toji had only ever seen two in all her time in SAO so far and those had proved quite the challenge. The difficulty was usually to do with executing the tasks themselves though, not figuring out what you needed to do. If Eltelm was asking for her help on the grounds that she was smarter then he must be having trouble figuring out the solutions to the puzzles themselves. Toji-like many video gamers-enjoyed occasional or sometimes even frequent minder benders in games.

There was a problem though, "what sort of monsters are there?" she asked. "You know I can't handle anything at the top end of the spectrum for this Floor."

"Don't worry," said Eltelm, "up the point I got all of the monsters were fairly easy pickings. I'm pretty sure this dungeon's challenge lies in the puzzles, not the combat. Besides," he added with a sideways smile, "I can always protect you."

"Don't get cocky with me!" warned Toji, drawing her own sword and waving it threateningly in front of Eltelm's face. Of course she knew that he could knock it out of her hands easily. In all probability he would end up protecting her if things went bad, and that was a big part of the reason why she didn't party with Eltelm much. She'd never said so, but the fact that he'd most likely have to take care of her all the time wasn't something she liked the idea of. Of course, if she was doing him a favour that was different.

"Where exactly is this dungeon?" she asked.

Eltelm smiled with relief. The blonde hated not getting his own way. Not in a bratty spoiled way, he just didn't like it when events took a detour from his previously laid plans. Toji couldn't help but admit that in real life he was probably a massive nerd with almost no friends or social life. Still, she thought he was sweet. But not like that!

"Floor 45 on the fifth level of the dungeon," he explained. "There's a hidden door which leads down a flight of steps into a new network of tunnels. That's where all the puzzles are."

Toji sighed as she accepted the fact that she wouldn't be reading anymore of her book until far on in the day. Pushing herself to her feet she said, "all right then. Go outside so I can change into my armour and we'll get going."

"Thank you," said Eltelm, hastily ducking out of the room. Toji shook her head and allowed a private smile.

Eltelm lent against the door outside and listened to the slight tinkling sound of Toji switching her ordinary clothes out for her battle dress. Eltelm hadn't bothered with casual since he spent all but a brief span of his time in a combat situation. _"You'll have to change that if you want to ask her you know." "Why?" "You can't wear armour on a date you moron!" "But normal clothes are expensive and I'd barely ever wear them." "So what? If she says yes and you turn up in worn out chain mail she'll think you're not taking it seriously." "Ugh! Fine, if she says yes then I'll get some proper clothes all right? Anyway, I may not even ask." "Why not?" "Because it's so risky. What if I upset her?" "You seriously think you'd stop being friends over something like that?" "I don't know! It happens in TV shows sometimes." "And they're such a reliable source of information aren't they?" "Fine, I take your point. It'd be better to ask and make sure, than stay quiet and be stuck wondering."_

His thoughts never went any further because at that moment the door behind him opened and he nearly fell backwards. "Oh, watch it!" muttered Toji, nudging him out of the way as she slipped out into the hallway. She looked at him suspiciously, "why were so close to the door?"

"Um, because? I don't know I wasn't really thinking about it," responded Eltelm lamely.

Toji frowned, "what level's your perception?" she asked sternly.

"Uh, let me see," Eltelm flicked through his stats for a brief moment, "Level 58. But what's that got to do with..." His voice trailed off. "I was not using deep sight to peep on you!" he spluttered aghast. _"Exactly, you didn't even know that would've worked or you would have tried it by now." "Shut up!" "Well you would have! You experiment with everything at least once don't you?" "That is not the point!"_

"Well I should hope not!" she cried. With an exaggerated huff, Toji turned on her heel and made for the stairs.

 _"But seriously, we've got to try that next time." "Go. And get killed. In a fire."_

Toji watched nervously as Eltelm quickly and easily deflected the lesser troll's blows. Calmly knocking the thick stone club to the side, he leapt over the monster's head and slashed it across the back with a glowing swing. The blue grey beast exploded into shards and Eltelm sheathed his sword with a cheerful smile. He looked at her somewhat concerned expression in surprise. "There's nothing to worry about," he said. "The monsters here are easy to deal with so long as you're within the safety margin. You could probably deal with them on your own if you wanted to."

"I don't need you to reassure me," muttered Toji in English. Normally she got a big part of her EXP off of crafting and non-combat related quests, though she did visit the dungeon sometimes now, it was usually with a party of friends. The truth was that she was scared; scared that if she messed up she'd be snuffed out of existence, though she'd never admit as much to anyone. _"Especially not to Eltelm,"_ she thought. He probably wouldn't understand what she meant. The worst part was that even though he needed her help with so many things she still felt like she was his inferior, simply because he didn't seem scared to fight on the front lines while she was terrified.

Eltelm frowned as she muttered words he couldn't understand. He couldn't for the life of him understand what the problem was. Had he said something wrong? _"I can't have can I? I mean, what's wrong with what I said?"_ He huffed in frustration and kept walking.

In a few minutes Eltelm came to an abrupt stop. Toji looked around at the walls expectantly, but couldn't see any sign of a secret door. The dungeon walls seemed perfectly smooth and grey like the rest of the passages. There were no symbols on the floor or ceiling; everything looked perfectly normal. "Where's the door?" asked Toji in confusion.

Eltelm looked over his shoulder to make sure no one else was in the area, before opening his inventory. He pressed one of the buttons and small piece of paper appeared in his hands. Looking closely at the paper Eltelm drew his sword and tapped on the wall at several seemingly random points. As he finished there was a grating sound and part of the wall swung inwards. "How did you know it was here?" asked Toji.

Eltelm held up the paper. "I got this as an item drop from a mini-boss," he explained. Showing the piece of paper to Toji he continued, "I figured that each of these points was numbered for a set order, but of course I didn't have any idea what that meant. I figured it out quite by accident really. So long as you're on the same level of the dungeon as the mini-boss was, all you have to do is tap on any wall in accordance with the pattern. I just came here to make sure no one would be around to see."

"What on earth gave you the idea to tap on the wall?"

"Like I said it was an accident," said Eltelm with a shrug. "I just tapped on the wall to make sure i had the positioning and order right in my head. I didn't expect a door to appear." Smiling, he held out his hand in the direction of the door, "ladies first."

"No thank you!" exclaimed Toji. "I don't know what's in there."

"Please yourself," said Eltelm before walking calmly into the dark opening. With a sigh Toji slipped in after him. She jumped slightly as the door snapped shut behind her. The inside was pitch dark and rather hot and stuffy.

"If this is a puzzle then it's certainly a good one," she muttered, feeling around for the side of the room.

"Hold on a minute," said Eltelm. A few seconds later a series of torches ignited spontaneously along the corridor. The passageway was only just wide enough for three people and the roof was low enough that a tall person would have to bend over slightly. The flickering orange light played over simple stone walls and a hard packed earthen floor.

"Thank goodness those aren't real torches," said Toji idly as the pair walked through the crapped space.

Eltelm nodded, "if they were the vapours they would give off would asphyxiate us in less than a minute. Fantasy games tend be unrealistic like that." He laughed, "it's weird really; we talk as if that's reality but well, this is our reality."

"I don't like to think of it like that," said Toji. "This world is no more real than fairies or Santa. We might think we're only two metres away from each other, but in the real world our bodies are probably miles apart."

"I suppose," replied Eltelm. "By the way, I don't think I've ever asked. Where are you from exactly?"

"England," said Toji. "That's where my body is now in all probability. I bought the game online so I didn't have to go to Japan to get it. It was quite the rush buying the game at the time. All two thousand online copies sold out in about twenty seconds so I was pretty lucky to have clicked fast enough. Well, at the time I thought I was lucky."

Eltelm didn't say anything to that. After around two minutes of walking through tight passages the two came to a stop. A wall blocked their path with no apparent way through. Several stones were raised outwards from the wall and there was some writing at the top. Before Toji could read it however, Eltelm had pressed all of the stones into the wall in what seemed an arbitrary order. "I already solved this one," he explained as the wall slide down into the floor. "Although," he added with a sheepish grin, "I figured it out by just pressing all of the stones in a random order until I got the right one, since i can't read the sign."

Toji sighed and shook her head as they emerged into a larger room with what looked like a row of four coffins. On each of them was a statue lying down, presumably of the deceased. "A bunch of spirits came up out of those before," said Eltelm, "I killed them last time though so we don't have to worry about it. The problem," he said, pointing towards the far end of the room, "is that." The exit was barred by a wooden door with a locking mechanism composed of four metal rods inserted into a central block. There were four symbols engraved on it: a snake, a lion, a lamb and a wolf, lined up in that order. "I'm afraid I haven't a clue what to do here," confessed Eltelm.

Toji looked at the lock closely but couldn't see any sort of opening mechanism. "Well," she mused, "since the symbols are in a specific order that should probably mean something. We should check to see if they're repeated somewhere else in the room."

"They're not," said Eltelm, "I already thought of that last time."

Frowning Toji walked over to one of the four coffins and looked at the face of the statue. It was pulled up in an unpleasant sneer that made her shiver. She looked at the face of the man on her right. It was firm set and grim, angry even. Suddenly an idea occurred to her and she looked over at the other two faces. One of them was calm and serene with a slight smile on his face, while the other was stern, proud and noble looking. "I think I've got it!" she exclaimed.

Eltelm looked at her in surprise. "That was quick," he said a little ruefully.

Toji rolled her eyes. "What's the matter?" she teased, "Did I bruise your ego?"

"Oh shut up!" snapped the solo player. "What is the solution then?"

"You see how each of these statues has a distinct expression?" she explained. Eltelm nodded slowly. "Well, do you see those animals? Each one of them is usually associated with a distinct type of personality."

Eltelm's face suddenly lit up in understanding. "I get it," he said. "The noble one is the lion, the angry one is the wolf, the happy one is the lamb and the demented one is the snake."

"I would have gone with sinister but whatever floats your boat," said Toji with a shrug. "Since the animals are shown in a specific order on the lock, I'd say we have to do something to these statues in the same order." Toji proceeded to check the statue she was nearest to for any sort of button or switch. Eltelm bent over another and searched as well, pressing his hands against anything that might be a disguised mechanism. Suddenly, something gave way under Toji's hand with a sharp click. "Aha!" she exclaimed, "It's the jewel that their swords have for pommels."

"All right then," said Eltelm, "this should be easy enough." He clicked in the pommel of the sinister statue, then noble one, the serene one and finally the angry one. Nothing happened. "Well so much for that idea," he sighed. "It looks this isn't quite that simple after all. Maybe we're reading the wrong personalities onto the animals?"

Toji thought for a moment, and then burst out laughing. Eltelm looked at her as if she'd just lost it. "It's silly really," she explained, "we're reading it backwards! We read left to right, they read right to left!" Eltelm groaned and proceeded to press the buttons in the reverse order. There was a loud clanking noise and the four rods slid backwards to the edges of the door. With a second click the lock split in half and the door swung open. "That wasn't so bad," said Toji brightly, walking through into the hallway beyond.

"Speak for yourself," replied Eltelm, "I spent a whole hour trying to figure that one out!"

"Seriously?" asked Toji incredulously. "You never thought the facial expressions were odd?"

"Well, I just assumed they were made to match the personalities of the four ghosts I had to fight when I got in there." He looked rather put out and didn't say anything else until they reached the next puzzle.

It was yet another flat wall, this time with a grid of different coloured squares on it. It was eight squares long on all sides and each one seemed to be a totally random colour. Above the board was a plate with some writing on it. "What's it say?" asked Eltelm.

"First valiant steed of black, second fortress of white and the dark power behind the throne," read Toji. "What the heck does that mean? I suppose they're instructions of some kind, but what do we have to do?"

"Well, the first part sounds like a horse obviously," mused Eltelm, "the second part like a castle and the last part, well I'm not sure. The colours mentioned probably have some significance as well I guess."

Toji tried tapping on some of the squares, but nothing happened. She then proceeded to stare at the board for several moments before throwing her hands in the air. "It doesn't make any sense!" she exclaimed. "I honestly don't have a clue. Light and dark? There aren't any black or white squares on this board!"

Suddenly Eltelm clapped his hand to his head, "oh of course! It's so obvious when you think about it." Toji looked at him surprise. "The board is eight squares by eight squares," he explained. When Toji made no response to that he sighed and said, "It's the same number of squares on a chess board."

"Ooooh! I never played chess so, yeah," she said.

"Neither did I," replied Eltelm pointedly. Thankfully he didn't hold onto the point and kept talking, "the black steed is first black knight; the one on the left. Then it's the white rook on the right and finally the black queen."

"Power behind the throne huh?"

"That's what they like to put in a lot of stories yeah," said Eltelm. "So, the question is which side is black and which one is white? Is the board along the y-axis, or the x-axis?" After thinking for a few moments he shrugged and said, "eh, we can just try all possible options until we get it I guess." He then proceeded to tap away various combinations on the board until finally the squares he tapped lit up a glowing blue. The board shattered into fragments as if it had been destroyed and the wall slide down into the floor.

Toji sighed, "there's was probably a way to work it out you know."

"Maybe. Probably," admitted Eltelm, "but odds are it was faster my way."

"You should probably stop doing that sort of thing you know," she warned. "In some games puzzles damage you if you get them wrong."

Eltelm frowned at that, "yeah, you're probably right," he said. "Fine then, I'll be more careful on the next one."

A minute after he finished the two came out into a large room. "Umm, I'm not sure you can do this one carefully," said Toji.

"Maybe not," agreed Eltelm.

The room was about sixty metres long and forty metres wide with a roof around forty metres high. The floor was covered in streaks of fire that exploded upwards from in between the cracks in the flagstones periodically. At several points the floor vanished completely to be replaced by streams of lava. Chains hung from the ceiling and platforms were bolted onto the walls at several points. "How's your agility score?" asked Eltem. "I'm not a big fan of platformers myself."

Toji bit her lip nervously. "62," she admitted.

"Well someone's been focusing haven't they?" said Eltelm with a sideways grin. "Mine's only 50. You should probably take this one then."

"Are you sure? What if there's no way around?" asked Toji, hurriedly trying to think of excuses not to do the challenge alone.

"There's a leaver at the far end," pointed out Eltelm. "Odds are it shuts down the fire and all the other stuff. If it doesn't I can try it, but it's still probably best if you give this a shot first. I've seen you fight; you're pretty dam fast. You've got much better chances of managing this than I do."

"Well, um, I," Toji's voice trailed off. "I can't do it!" she cried suddenly.

Eltelm looked taken aback at that, "why not?" he asked.

"I'm afraid," she said, looking down at the floor. "I can't expect you to understand that. You're constantly on the frontlines so this sort of stuff is normal for you. You never seem to be scared of any kind of danger in this game, but I am! I'm absolutely terrified every time I go outside that I'll get smashed into shards and just vanish away into a string of zeroes and ones in the game's memory banks." Her hands shook slightly at her sides. "I'm a coward," she hissed, "and you're one of the bravest people I've ever met."

There was silence for a while and then, "is that honestly what you think?" asked Eltelm. "You actually believe I'm not scared of what this world can do to me? I know that if I fall off a tall cliff, or if I screw up in a fight and take too bad a hit then I'm gone. And of course that knowledge is frightening as all hell."

"Then why do you still keep putting yourself at risk like you do?" she asked, looking up at him. What she saw surprised her. He wasn't looking at her with sympathy, disgust or even confusion. His eyes had something in them that made Toji feel like she wanted to hug him and run away at the same time. It was, it was, she wasn't sure what it was.

"I suppose that's a good point," he said. "There are a lot of other strong frontliners who could win the game without me. The Assault Team could probably beat the entire game without my help. But imagine if everyone thought that. There wouldn't be an assault team. It isn't fair to ask other people to do things for you; you need to try and do them yourself. That doesn't mean you can't work with someone to achieve a goal you might desire, it just means you can't let everyone do everything for you."

"But, but I can't!" gasped Toji, "I'm too afraid! I'm just a worthless bookworm who likes to think she's smart. That's all I was in the real world, and that's all I am here."

"I can't believe that," said Eltelm with a slight smile. "If it wasn't for you I would have kept pushing myself to stay on the frontlines despite not knowing how I was meant to play this game. Odds are I would have died Floors ago. You've helped me to form relationships with people here as well. It's thanks to you that I don't have to sleep in the rain anymore. It's thanks to you I don't, well, cry anymore."

Toji looked at him in surprise. "What?"

"I think you heard me," he said. "Some many times before I met you I ended up crying myself to sleep. I was so lonely and miserable back then. I tried to channel all of that misery into anger to help me keep up with the game, but I knew it wouldn't be long before I screwed up and died. You saved me from that. I don't think I could ever call you useless."

"I'm still a coward," Toji mumbled.

"I don't believe that either. If you were a coward you'd still be crouching back in the Town of Beginnings with the Aincrad Liberation army. But you're not. You're here, on the front lines."

"But I don't fight!" she protested. "Not like the rest of you do anyway. I just farm of weak monsters outside the dungeons and only go in with a party. I only came today because you said I wouldn't have to worry about strong monsters."

"You show up for every single Boss fight don't you? And there's nothing to be ashamed about in only coming to the dungeons with a party you know. Most people do, even the frontliners. You don't have to be a soloer to be important. There's nothing wrong with caring about your life you know."

Toji felt several tears running down her cheeks, and finally gave into the impulse she'd had gnawing at the back of her mind. She threw her arms around Eltelm's neck and buried her face in his chest. The solo player froze for a moment in shock, then returned her embrace. The two stood still for several minutes while Toji sobbed into Eltelm's cloak and he quietly held her. Finally she stopped crying and looked him in the eye. "We can go home if you want," he said. "You don't have to do this. You're far more valuable to me than any items we might get from this dungeon."

Toji found herself smiling. She stepped back and looked at the spurting flames and bubbling lava. "No," she said, her eyes filled with determination. "A little fire never hurt anyone did it?"


	11. Chapter 10

Chapter 10: White Christmas

Max Floor: 49 Level: 65

"Ohmygodit'ssnowing!" gasped Toji, her face pressed up against the window.

"Hold on," said Eltelm, getting to his feet and walking over to the window from where he'd been sitting by the fireplace. "Do you mind repeating that? And do it a lot slower this time."

"It's snowing!" repeated Toji, her deep violet eyes dancing with excitement as she stared out into the streets of Arendar, a small out of the way town on Floor 49.

"So what?" asked Eltelm, nonplussed.

"It's snow! Don't you find that exciting?" asked Toji in exasperation.

"Not really," said Eltelm with a shrug. "It's already snowed several times this last year. Why is this time so special?"

"Because it's christmas eve!" replied Toji. Her face had started to go red with the effort of trying to make him see the beauty of the moment. "If this keeps up we'll have a white Christmas! It's, I don't know poetic or something like that."

Eltelm looked out the window at the slowly drifting flakes of white that were slowly beginning to build up in small mounds around town. "It's not very heavy," he observed. "If you want any sort of ground coverage by tomorrow it'll need to snow non-stop."

Toji sighed. Try as she might, sometimes she just couldn't get Eltelm excited about this sort of thing. "Can't you get into the Christmas spirit a little more?" she asked.

"I'm already doing this whole Christmas get-together thing," groaned Eltelm, leaning against the wall with the signs of someone who has already done far more than they ought to be expected to do, and has been asked to do even more. "What more do you want from me?"

"Aren't you the least bit happy that it's Christmas?" asked Toji. "We're all going to get together and have fun. We're giving each other presents, and Bravo and Dawn are going to cook dinner. They're both very good chefs you know."

"I'd rather just spend Christmas with you," said Eltelm. He then turned bright red as he realised what he said. "Uh, I mean, you know, because I know you really well and stuff."

"Aren't the Shooting Stars and Thegns your friends as well?" Toji asked.

"Well yes," admitted Eltelm. "But, they're not friends like you are." He turned an even deeper shade of red and Toji found herself blushing slightly as well.

"Look," she said, putting a hand on Eltelm's shoulder, "we spend tons of time together. Heck, you practically live at my house," she added with a look that clearly implied a hint Eltelm never seemed to pick up. "But you don't spend much time with the others. It'll be fun okay? I promise."

Raising his hands in a gesture of defeat Eltelm said, "all right, all right. But, seeing as you like the snow so much," he said, looking a little uncomfortable. "How about we go for a walk? It shouldn't be that cold outside with the snow as light as this, and we don't need to be at the party until seven. It'd be nice wouldn't it?"

Toji thought for a moment. Ever since the incident in the puzzle dungeon Eltelm had gotten more and more open about his feelings for her. Initially Toji had felt a little embarrassed. Over time though she gotten used to it and took it in her stride like she did any other of the solo player's funny traits. And of course, she had to admit the feelings weren't totally one sided. She didn't like to do very many things with Eltelm that might be construed as romantic since she wasn't really sure if she wanted that sort of thing. She couldn't help but think about the potential complications a relationship formed here might have in the real world. Her parents probably wouldn't take very well to Eltelm and his anti-social character, and of course she didn't know his family either.

Still, this was the first time he'd actually asked her something like this. Toji looked into Eltelm's blue eyes for a moment then smiled. "Sure," she said. "It's still four in afternoon; we can take the long way to Myugen and arrive at around seven." Eltelm looked as if he'd just been told by a doctor that he wasn't going to die from a previously assumed fatal disease. The look of relief on his face was so extensive that Toji couldn't help laughing.

The air outside was crisp and fresh and the cold seemed to enhance the sky, which was slowly deepening to a dark blue now that the sun had gone down. Eltelm found that whilst the snow trimmed off the landscape well once it had landed, it was a great nuisance while it was still settling. He kept having to blink it out of his eyes whenever a gust of wind blew the wrong way. As he and Toji rounded a corner they came into a large forest of dark fir trees. They were all capped with white snow like in a post card.

"It's beautiful," sighed Toji happily.

"It's nice," admitted Eltelm. "This game may be horrible in some respects but, it does have its moments doesn't it?"

 _"You realise where you two are right?" "Of course." "Did you come here on purpose by any chance?" "What? No!" "Are you sure? A revival item would be a pretty handy thing wouldn't it?" "Yeah, I suppose so." "You've seen people die, you could bring them back couldn't you?" "I doubt it. This item is almost certainly a one-shot thing. On top of that, you can probably only use it so long as the death occurred a short time ago." "You seem pretty sure of that." "Of course I am. Think about it; we're killed by this game when the Nerve Gear fries our brains right? If it does that, there's no way an item cold revive a player who died more than a short time ago. Presumably there's a period of suspension or something after death." "So you don't want to fight Nicholas the Renegade?" "Oh believe me I'd love to. Trouble is, i probably get my arse kicked. He's an event Boss remember? He's not meant to be soloed. Besides, I did promise Toji I'd come to this party thing didn't I?"_

Despite that, it was difficult not to head for the fir tree where Eltelm suspected the Christmas themed Boss would spawn. His fingers were itching for a fight right now for some reason. In fact, without even thinking about it, Eltelm found himself heading towards that spot. Toji seemed to realise they were headed somewhere in particular. "Far be it for me to question your navigation skills," she said, "but I don't think this is the right way."

"Oh, crap you're right," exclaimed Eltelm. "Sorry I was just thinking about something and well, it looks like my feet led me there without me meaning to."

"Ah! I get it now," said Toji with a meaningful smile. "You think you know where Nicholas the Renegade is meant to spawn don't you?"

"I have some idea yeah," admitted Eltelm. "There's a particularly big tree in roughly the middle of this forest. The space around it is clear of other vegetation for several metres. It strikes me as the best spot. That's it over there," he said, pointing towards where a high tree top could be seen, jutting out above the rest of the forest. A slight pale blue glow seemed to be radiating from it now that the night had properly set in. "Sorry for detouring us by mistake," Eltelm said sheepishly.

"Don't worry about," said Toji with a smile. "To be honest getting hold of that revival item would be nice. Somehow though, I doubt the two of us could take down the Boss alone."

"Probably not," sighed Eltelm. "Of course," he added with sly grin, "if you want to try..."

"No thank you," said Toji firmly. "I have had enough Boss fights to deal with without adding Santa to the mix. Come on, let's head back now."

"Okay," agreed Eltelm. He allowed himself one last look in the direction of the tall tree before turning to go. The pair walked on for a little way and came out into a clearing. To Eltelm's surprise it was not empty like he would have expected. Klein and his guild Fuurinkazan were there standing just across from a black coated figure Eltelm recognised instantly.

The group turned to look at the new comers in surprise. Frowning Klein asked something that Eltelm only half understood but the jist of which was "what are you two doing here?" Toji replied calmly with several words that went totally over Eltelm's head.

"You fight the Boss?" asked Eltelm curiously.

"I fight the Boss," said Kirito in a flat voice. Eltelm looked at Klein in confusion. The katana wielder looked at Kirito irritably and shouted something in an insistent voice. Kirito replied with something to the effect of "no, I'll do what I want."

"He doesn't seriously mean to try and solo it does he?" asked Eltelm, looking at Toji.

"It sounds like it," she said, biting her lip. She sighed and looked at Eltelm. "You're not going to let him do it alone are you?"

"Not a chance," said Eltelm firmly.

"He's already refusing Klein's help," pointed out Toji. "What makes you think he'd accept yours?"

"I could fight him," suggested Eltelm, who had already equipped his sword and light armour.

"You'd lose," retorted Toji glumly.

"Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence right there," said Eltelm, with a hurt expression. Before Toji could reply, the clearing was lit up by two or so dozen teleportation signals. "Now what?" asked Eltelm irritably. As the figures materialised the original inhabitants of the clearing gave a slight gasp. The raid group that had appeared were all dressed in the blue and grey of the Holy Dragon Alliance. All of them were heavily armed and armoured. "I guess they're here for the item as well huh?" Eltelm asked no one in particular.

"Kirito!" he called out. The dark haired swordsman looked over his shoulder at Eltelm. "You lose someone?" Eltelm asked. Kirito nodded. _"And now he wants the revival item to try and bring them back. I knew he was power levelling for something!" "But didn't you say that it's unlikely that the item would work on anyone who'd been dead for a long time?" "Exactly. I said 'unlikely' I didn't say it was impossible." "Why do I get the feeling you're about to do something you'll regret?" "You know me too well." "I sincerely doubt I could know you any better."_

Eltelm drew his sword and strode forwards. "You go," he said to Kirito. "I fight them." Kirito's eye widened in surprise.

"Yes!" cried Klein. "We'll (something Eltelm couldn't understand). Just go!" Kirito hesitated for a moment, and then nodded before bolting off towards the tall tree.

Eltelm shot Toji an apologetic look. "It looks like we may be a little bit late for the party," he said.

Toji shrugged in a resigned way as she equipped her sword and shield. "I'm having you apologise to Arwen," she said.

"Great," muttered Eltelm. He looked at Klein nervously. "Plan?" he asked.

The red head ran his fingers nervously through his messy thatch and blew out a long breath. "Not really," he replied. Before Eltelm could say any more Klein took a step forwards and said something to Lind who was at the head of the raid group. Lind scoffed and replied in a 'never going to happen' tone of voice.

Eltelm looked at Toji hopefully. "Klein challenged Lind to a duel," she explained. "But he says there's no point when they have such a numerical advantage." Klein responded in jeering voice. "He's says Lind is just scared he'd lose," translated Toji. "Lind says that if Klein is so sure in his own abilities, why does he feel the need to limit to fight to a one-on-one. He says that he'll fight Klein, but it'll be part of the melee. Oh boy, I think we're about to have trouble."

Eltelm swallowed nervously and flexed his fingers over his hilt in anticipation. "Well," he murmured, "I suppose I did say I wanted a fight didn't I?" Weapons came out, blades flashing like fire under the light of the pale moon. The snow combined with the bright light of the silver disk seemed to set the clearing ablaze with blue-white light. Then as the various weapons began to glow, the area really did look like it was on fire. Eltelm's blade flickered into life, and alongside the rest let out a battle cry before charging forwards.

Eltelm blocked a high swing at his head, shoving his opponent's sword aside easily before making a slash across his enemy's chest. The red line exploded, sending the player flying backwards into two of his allies. Eltelm would have to be careful not to administer too much damage with his attacks. Since this wasn't a duel, he could easily kill someone by mistake if he wasn't careful.

Two attackers came in on him from the left and right, one with a two-handed sword and the other with a shield and one-handed sword. Eltelm ducked the swing of the two-handed attacker whilst at the same time kicking out the legs of the shield user. The man fell flat on his face, and Eltelm turned to face the other enemy, a woman with dark hair and an unpleasant looking demeanour. Since Eltelm was in rather a bad position she took a second swing, activating a sword skill to increase the speed of her attack.

Eltelm had no choice but to throw himself to the side, landing on his face with his sword under him. Rolling over he managed to swing up his sword in time to knock away the next oncoming blow. As he leapt back to his feet he saw that the shield user was up again. Moving as fast he could, Eltelm threw himself into an attack against the woman. His blade flashed white like the snow around them as he set off a four hit combo against her. She deflected two of the hits neatly, but the third one was a sloppier block. The fourth hit smacked her clean across the chest and she staggered backwards. Sword flashing Eltelm pressed his advantage, forcing her to block frantically. He was glad he'd invested so many points into his striking speed.

His attacks came on with such rapidity that his opponent was quickly overwhelmed and hit multiple times. In panic she tried to run, and with a final slash across her back, Eltelm let her. The entire attack had taken only ten seconds to execute, but Eltelm was only just able to leap out of the way of the other enemy in time. He still took a glancing cut to his left arm. He grunted with irritation as the strike took off about 5% of his health. These players might be part of the Assault Team as well, but many of them were actually somewhat behind the curve, still being stuck bellow level 60. Eltelm on the other hand was several levels ahead of most players at 65. One-on-one he could probably beat most other people here without too much trouble. Only Klein, Lind and perhaps one or two others would pose a real threat to him in combat.

Despite that, Eltelm wasn't about to give his opponents any quarter. He circled around the shield user, eyes scanning for any weakness in his defences. The man looked uneasy, like a gazelle cornered by a lion with nowhere left to run. Of course, even gazelles had horns (or were they antlers? Oh well, it didn't really matter). Deciding not to wait for his opponent to attack the man charged forwards with a roar. He attempted to bash his shield into Eltelm, but the cloaked swordsman jumped nimbly aside and deflected the man's swing. Activating shield breaker he smashed the man's guard apart.

With a smile of satisfaction Eltelm rushed in, laying six cuts over the man's chest in quick succession. There were no sword skills in play there, just plain attacks. Even so, they were more than enough to throw the defender totally off balance. By this point his front was wide open and he had no way of closing it up fast enough. Eltelm's sword blazed white as he smashed the man backwards. He spun three times in the air before landing in the snow and lying still with a long groan of pain.

Satisfied that he hadn't injured the man beyond what a night's sleep could repair Eltelm turned to the fight at large. Seven members of the HDA had already retreated, with only one member of Fuurinkazan knocked out of the fight. Despite that, the enemy still held a 2:1 advantage. Lind had kept his word, and he and Klein were fighting furiously around the centre of the melee. Eltelm was impressed by fast they were both able to move. Their swords flashed and sparks actually flew from their edges as the two went back and forth, churning up the snow below them.

 _"Why can't I have an opponent like that?"_ Eltelm asked himself. The sound a blade whooshing through the air prompted him to spin just in time to parry a lance thrust. Eltelm staggered backwards from the force of the blow. _"Me and my big mouth!"_ Schmitt, leader of the defensive contingent of the HDA stared him down menacingly. Eltelm swallowed nervously and raised his sword.

Cautiously he took several steps around the tank, eyeing him off from where he held position behind his tower shield. The massive steel plate seemed more reminiscent of a door than a shield to Eltelm's mind. Of course in this game a shield didn't necessarily have to be limited by practical size and weight. Still, Eltelm knew from past experience that Schmitt was less mobile than many others in combat and that his offensive capabilities were limited.

His gaze intense, Eltelm rushed forwards hammering his sword against the tower shield in a futile effort to make his enemy shift his guard somewhat. Schmitt responded by stabbing at him several times with his lance in quick succession. In a flurry of steel on steel Eltelm deflected the attacks, sending a flurry of sparks flying into the air around him. With a snarl Eltelm proceeded to move around Schmitt in a circle, hammering his weapon against his shield over and over again, trying desperately to find an opening. Whenever he let up the sub-commander would take the opportunity to make several thrusts which Eltelm would be obliged to defend against.

Finally Eltelm attempted to use shield breaker once it came off cooldown, but to his dismay his opponent's defensive stats proved too high and his guard held. Eltelm then followed it up with any sort of armour penetrating abilities he could think of, but without success. Now Eltelm was getting a full rush of adrenaline; he hadn't had this good a fight in a long time. He leapt backwards to get himself some space. "You fight good," he said.

Schmitt nodded, "you as well," he said.

"But," added Eltelm with a smile, "I win." Flipping his sword around in his hands so that he was clutching the blade, he charged up skull breaker. His theory had turned out to be right; it was an extremely rare skill that you could only unlock if you were ahead of the safety margin, and you had to have used a murder stroke several times prior to unlocking the actual skill. Thus far only a few other high level players had bothered to learn it, since it didn't really fit their fighting styles. His weapon flashing bright white Eltelm smashed his guard and handle into Schmitt's tower shield with every bit of force his strength stat could muster. As it turned out that was no small amount.

The concussive force of the blow sent Schmitt skidding backwards several metres. His shield stayed intact, and he even managed to keep it reasonably aligned. A wave of damage had still passed through it and hit him however. On top of that his gigantic shield was now somewhat out of position. It wasn't much, but it was enough to exploit.

Eltelm dashed forwards and made a thrust straight into the gap in Schmitt's defences. The tank tried to block off the stab with his lance but his reaction was too slow. The sword point connected with his armour and rammed into his shoulder joint. As Eltelm withdrew his sword Schmitt staggered backwards. With a frustrated look at Eltelm he withdrew away from the fight to tend to his reduced HP. Eltelm eyed his own health bar nervously. It had dropped into the yellow zone during that fight. Though only just as it was resting on about 60%.

Letting out a long breath Eltelm looked around him. The fight was more or less over now. Everyone was sitting around with their weapons dropped in the snow, panting. Klein and Lind were still facing each other, taking cautious steps around in a circle. Apart from that everyone else seemed to have just stopped fighting. With a sudden cry Klein rushed in and taking Lind by surprise landed a blow on his right shoulder. Clearly this was enough to bring the Guild Leader's health into the danger zone, as he reluctantly sheathed his sword and took several steps back.

Eltelm looked around for Toji and found her seated with her back to one of the trees around the edge of the clearing. She looked tired but she was smiling all the same. "That was, actually kind of fun," she said with a smile. "Although," she added quickly, "I'd rather not make a habit of it."

"Oh really?" asked Eltelm in mock disappointment, "I was hoping to bring you to all my PvP fights."

"Shut up!" she said, playfully kicking him in the shin. "What happens now?" she asked, looking around at the exhausted players.

"I don't know," said Eltelm with shrug. "You're the one who's fluent in their language not me."

"Yes but no one's saying anything," pointed out Toji. "What about Kirito? Do you think he's okay?"

Eltelm pushed himself up to his feet. "I'd better go check on him," he said.

"Wait, no need!" exclaimed Toji, pointing towards the edge of the clearing. "There he is." Kirito was trudging through the snow with a defeated look on his face, staring at the ground. "It doesn't look like it went too well," said Toji.

"Let's find out," said Eltelm, before walking over to Kirito. "You win?" he asked. Kirito nodded glumly. He held up a silver orb with a golden snowflake on it. "Revival item?" asked Eltelm, using the German word for revival and hoping Kirito could guess its meaning.

He nodded again. "Here," he said, tossing it to Toji. She caught and read the description aloud, first in Japanese, then in German for Eltelm's benefit.

"The target player is brought back to life at 30% of their maximum health," she read, "Only usable for up until ten seconds after death."

Saying something Eltelm couldn't understand Kirito began to walk away. Somehow, seeing Kirito walking away alone into the snow with a look of hopeless reassignment on his face reminded Eltelm all too much of himself just five months ago. The idea that someone was going through all of that again, was unacceptable. "Kirito, wait!" Eltelm called out, hurrying after him.

Kirito stopped and looked over his shoulder at him. "What?" he asked in a flat voice.

"Toji," Eltelm said, beckoning the girl over hurriedly, "Tell him that I know what it's like to be alone; to feel hopeless. You start to close yourself down bit by bit, thinking you can shut everything up inside and keep going without looking it in the eye. The truth is, sooner or later it'll catch up to you and the longer you push it away the worse it's going to be when it comes. You might think after that it'll end, but it won't. It will never end so long as you let yourself stay in the place that you're in. Kirito, you don't need to be alone."

As Toji finished translating his words over, Kirito turned fully around on the spot and looked at Eltelm curiously. He began to speak in a hushed tone that covered what Eltelm was sure was sadness, and at least a little despair. After he finished Toji hastily passed on his words. "Maybe you're right about the pain. Maybe you're right that it will only get worse the longer I hold it off, but tell me, is there any way in which I couldn't be alone? I'm a solo player; I don't party with anyone. People don't want me around anyway because I'm a beater. I don't see how I couldn't be alone."

"I'm a solo player," retorted Eltelm. "I've only been in a party a few times during my time in this world. It doesn't mean I can't have friends. Besides, unless I'm much mistaken you already have friends, or did you just miss the whole 'fighting so you could get your item' thing? There are plenty of people who don't give a crap about whether or not you're a beater, I certainly don't."

Kirito stood in stony silence. His eyes were a compromised mix of emotions that Eltelm couldn't get a reading on. Suddenly an idea occurred to Eltelm and he turned and spoke directly to Toji. "Where is that we're meeting for this Christmas get together thing again?" he asked.

"Lee managed to arrange to have an inn made available to us exclusively for the night," she said.

"So we won't be short on space or anything like that?" asked Eltelm.

"Well no," said Toji, "in fact the odds are we'll have a good deal more than we need. Wait a second, you're not-

Eltelm cut her off by speaking directly to Kirito again, "Its Christmas Eve," he said, "Nobody should be alone right now. Come with us."

As Toji translated his words over (with a sharp sideways look in Eltelm's direction) Kirito's expression changed totally. His eyes cleared and widened slightly, while his mouth had fallen open slightly. He stammered for several moments, not knowing what to say. Before he could say anything though, Klein strode up and clapped a hand on his shoulder. He said something in an energetic voice. "He says he thinks it's a great idea," translated Toji. "He wants to know just what it is we're planning on doing." She quickly said a few words to Klein that seemed to explain the situation. The katana wielder looked thoughtful for a moment before speaking again.

Arwen looked out the window nervously at the dark streets of Myugen. "They're late," she said in a worried voice.

"Relax, they've probably just stopped to look at the view," said Lee. "That or they ended up under some mistletoe and Eltelm's trying to push the subject," he added with a laugh.

"Oh you're exasperating!" fumed Arwen. "They're a full half hour late; that's not like Toji at all. In fact it isn't like Eltelm either. They're both always sure to arrive on time for things. And I know Toji wouldn't have forgotten about this, we've been talking about it for several days now."

Lee got up with a sigh, pulling himself away from the warm fireplace with some difficulty. "Do you want some of us to go out and look for them?" he asked.

"It might be best," said Arwen, nodding.

Reluctantly Lee turned to where the rest of his guildmates were talking or drinking. "All right guys, I'm gonna need to interrupt you for a moment," he said. "A certain someone is worried that our friends may have gotten lost or something. So we should probably go look for them."

"Those two?" asked Bravo with a raised eyebrow. "I find that unlikely."

"Maybe they've been mugged," suggested Sarah.

"Eltelm, get mugged?" asked Dawn. "Unless the mugger was level 70 or higher I very much doubt it."

"But it isn't like them to be late," pointed out Typhus with a frown.

"You're always being negative though," moaned Diana.

"Hey guys!" called out Suzu from a window on the far side of the main room. "It looks like you're all worrying for no reason after all," she said once they all came over to her window. "They're both coming now." The brunette pointed out into the dark night where Eltelm and Toji could indeed be seen picking their way through the snow covered streets.

"Who are all those other people with them?" wondered Lee.

As the door opened Toji stepped and blocked the way for everyone behind her. "All right, this is going to be a bit difficult to explain," she said. "But suffice to say a certain German someone decided to invite a few other people along."

"Hey!" called a voice from behind her, "Can we come in? It's freezing out here!" Toji stepped in and to the side with a sighed and allowed the small crowd behind her to enter. Six other guys came in hurriedly, huffing out white clouds of steam as they entered. Lee recognised them as Fuurinkazan, and became thoroughly confused. Still, the story that explained this was bound to be good. Next came a somewhat sheepish looking Eltelm who pulled frantically at his hood, trying to hide his face from view. Finally a single dark haired figure wearing a long black coat, with a sword slung over his back. At that point Lee was definitely sure he'd look forward to the story that would explain this.

Kirito looked around a little worriedly before several people started to say hello and he had to respond. Eventually he found himself seated at a table with food in front of him, and not knowing what else to do, started eating it. To Eltelm's relief the evening went rather well. All three guilds seem to get along reasonably well, though Klein got slapped in the face six times by different girls throughout the night. Eventually, even Kirito started to join in with several conversations. While Eltelm couldn't have said that he'd started to laugh and joke with everyone else, he did eventually start to smile and contribute to the conversation.

At around ten at night, people started to say their goodbyes and head off. As the last of the Shooting Stars headed out the door Toji smiled to Eltelm and said, "Well, I guess I'll be going home now. It looks like your hair brained idea didn't go so badly after all huh?"

"No, I suppose it didn't," said Eltelm, looking over at where Kirito was still sitting by the fire. "I'll probably just stay here tonight," he continued, "since I've got no better place to be."

"All right," said Toji. She walked to the door, but paused just before leaving. "The walk was nice," she said with a smile. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight," said Eltelm, feeling a warm aura spreading throughout his body.

As the door closed behind Toji, Eltelm heard the rustling of cloth. He turned to see that Kirito had stood up. He walked over to the inn keeper (who in this case was actually a human player) and arranged to sleep in one of the ground floor rooms for the night. Before he headed through the door which led to the bedrooms, Kirito turned to look at Eltelm. "Thank you," he said simply.

"You're welcome," replied Eltelm. "What else are friends for?"


	12. Why I haven't updated in a while

**All right so I think I'd better explain why I haven't been updating just recently. I do have the next chapter ready to go, but I'm going to be holding onto it for a little while. You see, I just realised while writing it that no one had any reason to care about the secondary characters (Lee, Arwen, Tails, Dawn etc.), in fact I'm pretty sure none of you even knows who all of them are. So, I'm going to be taking a short break from the current story and rewind time a bit so that we can get to know these people a little. I probably should have done this sooner so that I wasn't breaking the chronological order, but hey, I'm not a professional writer and I'm basically just making this up as I go. It's going to take a little while to write these new chapters so expect there to be a brief delay before I can start putting them up. Hopefully I'll be able to put up the first one this Saturday. This isn't going to be a long divergence, just for a few chapters, say maybe three to five. I hope you'll all enjoy them.**

 **With regards, The Lord of Silence.**


	13. Chapter 10B

Chapter 10.1: Newest Edition

Featuring: The Thegns Max Floor: 22

Lee took a deep breath, letting the warmth of Aincrad's artificial sun tingle on his skin. Floor 22 was basically just one huge rolling mass of hills and valleys. There was very little vegetation besides grass and few landmarks bar the occasional ruin, town and looming dungeon entrance. It meant that if you were on top of one of the higher hills you could see right to the edge of the Floor itself. The view was a little underwhelming for being so vast, since there wasn't much to look at. Lee didn't mind though; he just liked being able to look down at everything.

"Finished up there yet your highness?" called out a teasing voice from down bellow. Lee looked down at Raven and frowned in silent reply. He did however hurry down the slope to join the rest of his guild.

"So," prompted Tails impatiently (he was always impatient), "which way is it to the dungeon?"

"A few rises over and to the left," replied Lee. "I think I saw someone else going in, so we won't be having it to ourselves."

"How many?" asked Typhus, his right hand straying instinctively to one of the daggers on his belt.

"Just the one," reassured Lee. "Don't worry so much big guy," he added, slapping his large friend on the shoulder before starting off in the direction he'd given. The sky was clear and the air was warm and friendly, so Lee was a little reluctant to head into one of the dim, stuffy dungeons that ran underneath this Floor like rabbit warrens. Still, mini bosses waited for no man who was not prepared to go after them!

The party of five paused briefly at the entrance. It was a staircase of sandy yellow stone descending down into the earth, surrounded on both sides by simple featureless pillars. The patchy faded brown grass grew in between the cracks of the flagstones until the lack of light became too severe for the plant life to persist, at which point there was simply cold dry stone. With a resigned sigh the group descended the steps into the dark.

The dungeon itself wasn't all that eventful at first. Just small groups of skeletons and the occasional giant spider (much to Raven's disgust). After a while though a few stone golems began to spawn which made things more difficult. They weren't too hard to kill but they were a bit more dangerous. When the group came to a section of the dungeon where dozens of large holes dotted the walls and skittering noises could be heard echoing up from them, Raven started to walk very close to Ironhand, holding her boyfriend's arm.

Despite her nervous behaviour she still hacked the head of an emerging spider without a second thought. It was just that she-not unlike everyone else-was sick and tired of giant bugs. This floor had been infested with them. The encounters grew more and more frequent and the spiders and other giant insect-like creatures stronger and stronger. Lee was confident his guild could keep going for a good while longer, but he took things a little slower now. There was no need to take unnecessary risks after all.

Suddenly there was an ear splitting scream from somewhere up ahead. Lee remembered the person who had gone into the dungeon before them. He'd assumed that they were a high level soloer in order to be attempting something like this alone. What if he had been wrong about that? Without pausing for more than a few seconds the hammer wielder was sprinting down the passageway towards the source, followed hastily by his friends.

Lee skidded to a stop as he came into a wide room that seemed to be empty. In the middle of the floor was the figure of a player on their knees. They were clutching a spear tightly to their chest and looking frantically around them. As Lee approached he saw she was a girl in her mid teens dressed in small amounts of brown leather armour with a black cloak draped over her shoulders. At other times the 17 year old probably would have taken note of how cute she was but now was definitely not the time.

He walked over to her and bent down. "Are you all right?" he asked. "We heard you scream and-

"It's in the walls!" screamed the girl, her eyes wide.

"What is?" asked Lee sharply, making a wary glance over his shoulder and gesturing to his party to take up defensive positions around them.

"I was being stupid," hissed the girl bitterly, "I'd been doing well up until this point so I thought I might be able to manage it alone."

"Manage what?" pressed Lee.

"The mini-boss," she explained. "Things didn't work out too well though." Lee focused on her and checked her health bar. It had been drained to the red zone.

"Take this," he said, pulling her to her feet and handing her a health potion. The girl smiled gratefully and drank it. "Now, you can get out of here. A solo player shouldn't be trying to deal with this alone."

"Thanks but no thanks," she said firmly. "If you're going to stay and fight this thing I want in." Lee opened his mouth to argue with her. Running the risk of giving up drops and EXP to someone outside of his guild was not a very appealing prospect. Before he could say anything however, there was a loud cracking noise and the floor near to the entrance was broken apart.

The creature that emerged was not unlike a giant cockroach. Raven squealed as she saw it and the rest (besides Typhus) all grimaced in disgust. It had only the one health bar and was called Ikri the burrower. It gave a chittering sound and jumped forwards, snapping its jaws. Tails-who was the target of its aggression-jumped nimbly out of the way and made a quick slash at the things' head. His sword just bounced off the creature's armoured exoskeleton and left its health bar untouched. That explained why it had so little health; it must be difficult to damage.

"Ironhand take agro!" ordered Lee, gesturing for his friend to move up. "Everyone else make sporadic hits; focus on trying to find weak points in the armour." The axe wielder charged the giant bug head on, activating a sword skill that caused his entire weapon to glow. He landed with a huge shattering blast which sent the creature spiralling back several steps. It also firmly locked its attention on the tank.

Ikri responded by spitting a strange yellow goo from its jaws. The substance splattered over Ironhand's legs and quickly turned hard, locking him into a single spot. "Ack!" gagged Ironhand. "This stuff smells disgusting!"

"Aren't there more pressing concerns besides the smell?" asked Lee.

The giant bug leapt at Ironhand, eyes glowing a bright red. The tank's hands however were still free, and he swung his glowing red axe at the boss as it came at him. The weapon connected with the creature's head and knocked it into the floor. It let out a screech, but the hit had only drained its health bar ever so slightly. It sent dirt and stones flying as it dug hurriedly into the floor. Typhus slashed at the thing as it went, but was too late to catch it.

A scuttling noise echoed throughout the room, coming from the walls, floor and ceiling all at the same time. The group looked around frantically, forming a circle around the immobilised Ironhand. "Hey you," hissed Lee to the girl.

"I do have a name," she hissed back.

"Well you never told me!"

"Oh right, sorry. It's Bravo."

"Bravo, does this thing make any indication as to where it's going to pop up next?"

Bravo nodded. "There's usually this big red circle that appears on the ground," she said.

"Uh, like that one?" asked Tails, his voice breaking slightly. They all looked down and saw a large red ring perfectly encompassing the spot where they were standing.

Lee groaned. "Well sh-

There was a huge explosion as the ground erupted underneath them and sent everyone flying to the edges of the boss room. Even Ironhand was dislodged from his leg cocoon and hurled away into the wall. Ikri gave a chattering roar as it loomed up onto its hind legs. Lee finished his swear word under his breath then his eyes lit up. The armour that was present on the top part of the boss's body did not seem to cover its underside. "Go for the underbelly!" he called out sharply, pushing himself to his feet and using a sword skill to get himself within attacking range of Ikri before it could drop back down onto all fours.

He smashed his warhammer into the much softer layer of interlocking plates and heard a satisfying crunch. This was followed in turn by a warped howl of pain as the boss dropped back onto all fours. Lee smiled as he saw that its health bar had taken a hit from that. Not a big one, since it had been a regular attack, but it had taken real damage for the first time. The huge bug swiped at Lee in a wild spinning motion and hurled him onto his back with his feet in the air.

The posture would probably have looked funny if not for how dire the situation actually was. Typhus had already pushed himself to his feet and was sprinting towards his friend's side when the boss pulled back its head to sink its pincers into the temporarily dazed Lee. But Typhus had been thrown to the farthest side of the room; he wouldn't make it in time to block the attack.

There was a clang and a flash of yellow sparks as the boss's jaws were held back. Bravo huffed and panted as she attempted to compete with the creature's superior STR stat. She dived forwards and had managed to lock her spear between Ikri's pincers. Now she was trying to hold it back. The huge insect reared then brought its head down again, sending a rippling wave through its entire segmented body. Bravo was dislodged and sent skidding backwards. Frantically she looked to where Lee was still lying paralysed. Or at least where he should have been lying paralysed.

Most players around this level would remain stunned for about five seconds. The only way you could decrease that time was by being a higher level, above level 35 in fact. Bravo herself thought she was pretty high level at 33. Naturally she was amazed to see Lee already back on his feet. The dark haired young man charged, ramming his buckler into the bug's head before smashing his warhammer (which was flashing a bright orange) into the joints for one of its legs. Ikri snapped at him as it retreated a few steps.

By this point the rest of the team had all gotten to their feet and were in the middle of the room. Ikri spat more yellow goo at them, but this time they were ready and dodged out of the way. All except for Tails who got his right foot stuck and fell flat on his face. He slashed angrily at Ikri as it tried to approach him. The creature tried to grab his sword in its mandibles, but was literally pulled away from him by Raven as she hooked the boss's abdomen with her khopesh. Tails hissed in frustration as he tugged vainly at his binding.

"Hang on I got it," said Bravo, bringing up her spear and ramming it down against the yellow stone-like substance. The deposit cracked apart and vanished in a shower of blue sparks. "There you go," said Bravo cheerfully, helping him to his feet while behind her Ironhand tried to physically grapple with the mini-boss.

"Th-thanks," stammered Tails. He had a big stupid grin on his face and had gone slightly red. Bravo didn't notice though and turned back to fighting Ikri.

After a few concussive blows were delivered the boss burrowed into the floor again. This time the group was ready and scattered around the room. Each player avoided staying still for very long, and when the red circle appeared underneath Raven she managed to jump out of the way as the boss cracked its way through the ground. Ikri reared up once again on its hind legs, presenting its weak point to them in open defiance. If the computer controlled mob had been capable of it in the first place, it would have quickly regretted its arrogance. Six brightly glowing attacks hit it from all sides, taking its health bar down to about 60%.

After this all they had to do was rinse and repeat. It was like many other boss battles Lee could recall from other video games. If you waited long enough the monster would show its weak spot to you. Then you just had to attack with everything you had before pulling back and doing it over again until you won. It wasn't exactly intuitive game play. SAO however had never had all that much uniqueness about it in terms of core mechanics. They were much the same as with any other MMORPG. The only difference was of course that in this game you had to do the fighting yourself.

After repeating the process twice more Ikri dropped suddenly to the ground with its legs splayed. Funnily enough, Ironhand had been too slow getting out of the way got his legs trapped by the falling bug. The boss gave one last sorrowful chitter and shattered into polygons. Small windows popped up in front of each of them notifying them all of what they'd picked up from the fight.

"Dam it!" hissed Bravo. She of course had gotten no items, as she wasn't in the party that got the last hit. Still, she had gotten a good deal of EXP from the fight and her disappointment was somewhat elated by a large flashing 'Level up!' notification.

"Hold on," said Lee, opening his menu and pressing some buttons. Bravo was surprised when a trade menu popped up in front of her with two items and 5000 Col in it and nothing requested in exchange. "You saved my hide back there," explained Lee. "You did pretty well during that fight, so I think you deserve a share of the loot."

"But you guys already saved me before the whole fight started," said Bravo. "I can't accept this. It was just my hard luck."

"Oh don't be stupid!" said Lee with a dismissive wave of the hand. "If there'd been time I would have invited you to join our party anyway so you'd get a share of the drops. Just take them."

"Well, all right then," nodded Bravo. With a little reluctance she pressed the accept button. "Thank you." She paused for a moment. "By the way, how were able to recover from the stun so quickly? You should have been paralysed for longer than that."

"Hmm? Oh I crossed the level boundary for that just yesterday," said Lee, a hint of pride in his voice, though he tried to hide it under a casual tone.

"Wait, you're Level 35?!" gasped Bravo. "But, but that would put you in the top thirty players in the game. Shouldn't you be on the Assault Team or something?"

"Don't go putting ideas in this guy's head," said Ironhand, clapping Lee on the shoulder. "He might just go through with them."

"The rest of our guild isn't levelled high enough to be on the Assault Team," explained Typhus, folding his arms. "If Lee were to join it he'd have to fight alone. That is something we're not about to let him do."

"Besides, he makes clearing dungeons easier," added Raven with a sly smile. "He's our ticket to the easy life."

"Ah you're all just a bunch of lazy idiots," moaned Lee in feigned frustration. "I should just up and leave you right now and go join the Holy Dragon Alliance!"

"Don't you dare!" cried Ironhand. "I'll come and tear you right out of your uniform."

"Don't worry," said Lee with a grin, "I'm not about to join one of the top guilds. I don't like their colour schemes." There were a few snorts of laughter while Ironhand took a swing at Lee's head which he ducked.

"So you guys are all in a guild then huh?" asked Bravo. "What're you called?"

"The Thegns!" declared Tails proudly.

"The what?" asked Bravo, nonplussed.

"You haven't heard of us at all?" asked Tails, genuinely disappointed.

"Not really, no," said Bravo. "And what's a Thegn?"

"An old type of nobleman from England," explained Lee. "Used to make some of the best infantry there was for the Anglo-Saxons. I have a passing interest in that time period."

Typhus snorted, "Passing is an understatement. I've known him for years and I can tell you he's obsessed with it."

Lee gave his large friend a pained look. "What about you?" he asked Bravo. "You in a guild or are you just a solo player?"

"I'm still solo," said Bravo. "I actually logged on on my brother's account. He was beat tester and said I could try the game on launch day since he'd already spent time on it before hand. I bet he regrets that now. Anyway, that meant I didn't really have any real life friends to fall back on once this whole 'death game' thing started. Still, I manage to find the occasional wandering party to work with."

"Hmm," murmured Lee, putting a hand to his chin and looking at Bravo with narrowed eyes.

"Oh no, it's the planning face," groaned Ironhand.

Lee ignored him apart from a brief annoyed glance in his direction. "Bravo," he said, switching over to a more businesslike manner than before, "If you're not tied down to anyone right now, how about partying with us for a bit? We don't have anyone with a pole-arm, plus our numbers are a bit low for a guild on the top floor. It'd just be for as long as you felt like it of course," he added quickly.

Bravo thought about it for a moment. She'd done this kind of thing before if a party had offered and had seemed nice and competent enough. "That would be nice, thanks," she said with a smile.

"Does this mean she'll join our guild?" asked Tails excitedly.

"Whoa! Slow down there kid," said Ironhand.

"I thought I asked you guys not to call me kid?" asked Tails irritably. "I'm not a kid I'm fifteen."

"Which makes you the youngest out of all of us here," finished Ironhand, arms crossed, "Hence, kid."

"What about Bravo?" asked Tails in frustration. "She doesn't look very old to me."

"I'm sixteen," pointed out Bravo with a frown.

"Really? Uh oh," said Tails, looking worriedly at the cave floor.

"Why's that an uh oh?" asked Bravo in confusion.

"No reason!" exclaimed Tails hastily. "Hey Lee are we done here 'cause I'm sick of this dungeon?" he asked, quickly changing the subject.

Lee chuckled and shook his head. "I think so," he said. He went through several menus and sent a party invite to Bravo. The brunette smiled and accepted it. "Welcome aboard," said Lee.

As they retraced their steps out of the dungeon (one annoying thing about SAO was that fast travel didn't exist except with teleport crystals and sites, and the first were expensive and the second only found in towns) Raven fell into step beside Bravo. "I think he likes you," she whispered, nodding to where Tails was walking up front.

"I thought so," hissed Bravo. "Should I...?"

"No," said Typhus from behind the two girls. "He's my brother so trust me when I tell you: he will enjoy it more if he thinks you don't know. Don't worry; he shouldn't annoy you anymore than he does the rest of us."

Bravo shrugged. "Okay, so long as I don't create something awkward," she said. "Oh well, this is probably only for a few days anyway."

One week later and a hand raised a glass, followed by four other hands. "Here's to our newest member!" declared Lee. "Bravo, welcome to the Thegns!"

"Happy to be here," replied Bravo with a wide smile, raising her own glass.

 **So there's the story of how Bravo joined the Thegns. I hope you guys enjoyed spending some time with different characters, I certainly found it fun to write. The next chapter will be about the Shooting Stars (that's Arwen's guild) and will take us back to the Floor 1. I hope you guys enjoy the short detour to see the adventures of some other characters.**


	14. Chapter 10C

Chapter 10.2: Escape

Feauturing: The Shooting Stars Max Floor: 3

She was going to die! She was going to explode into a million pieces and then fade into nothingness. The intense fear rushing through Silvae was so great that she couldn't even fall down, never mind try to run or fight. She watched as the glittering blue fragments that had once been her best friend vanish away into empty virtual air. The girl's hands were shaking but that was about all the movement she could manage. Six wolves prowled slowly around her, following their standard attack patterns. Silvae knew that as one of the wolves jumped back she needed to move to deflect its attack, but she couldn't.

The low level mob jumped forward and slashed her with both of its front claws. The dark haired girl screamed as the game sent a signal to her pain receptors. She fell to her knees and looked about her, waiting for the inevitable death blow to come from the next mob. Her HP was in the red zone and another attack would more than likely finish her. It was all over now.

Then there was the sound of someone shouting and a bright streak of blue cut through the air. Two of the wolves exploded and the others switched agro. "Get up!" yelled Silvae's unexpected rescuer. But the poor girl couldn't lift a finger of her own accord, she was so deeply in shock. The newcomer was a dark skinned boy of about sixteen with black hair cut extremely short all over. Seeing that Silvae clearly wasn't going to be moving anytime soon he activated a knock-back sword skill that sent the four remaining wolves scattering away from him. The damage was poor but it would give him space.

He hurried forwards and forcibly yanked Silvae to her feet. The brunette didn't make a sound as the boy dragged her away. She just stared back at the spot where her friend had been sitting, looking in shock at her empty health bar, before she'd broken into a million beautiful blue shards. The boy growled in annoyance at her lack of movement but thankfully his stats were a good deal above hers so it wasn't too hard to drag her around. Before long the pair had left the pack of mobs behind.

The boy stopped and turned to Silvae. "You all right?" he asked in broken Japanese. Silvae didn't respond. "Do you speak English?" the boy tried, switching to that language. Silvae retained her blank look. The boy sighed. "Look come on, I need you to give me some sort of sign here," he said in English.

Silvae managed a slight nod, "little English," she said in that language.

"I can understand Japanese," said the boy. "Are you all right?"

Silvae shook her head. "HP, nearly gone," she managed.

"Here," said the boy, pulling a potion from one of his pouches and handing it to her. She took it and drank numbly. Her eyes were staring at the ground the entire time, her gaze not flickering either left or right nor up or down. The boy figured she was in shock, but he wasn't sure what you were supposed to do for people in shock besides try to make them feel safe. "My name's Nova," he said, "What's yours?"

"Silvae," she said. Her voice was wispy and frail, like dried out grass.

"We need to go to town," explained Nova. Silvae nodded in understanding. "You have friends who look after you?" Nova asked.

Again Silvae nodded. "At the inn," she whispered, "It's called the Golden Bull. Her name's Arwen."

Nova nodded, "You're going to be all right," he said. Then he slowly began leading her towards the road. It was slow going to Nova's irritation, as Silvae wouldn't walk any faster than about twenty steps a minute. The boy did his best to put down his annoyance however, since he could tell the girl had been through a terrible trauma. Nearly getting killed was a pretty unpleasant experience. Nova could sympathise because it had happened to him.

When the First Floor Boss Raid had all gone to hell he'd nearly been killed by the boss. He'd been saved by some guy in a green cloak who'd taken the thing's agro. The same guy had proceeded to work with the two other members of his party to take the boss out. Afterwards things had gotten a bit rough. Nova hadn't been able to follow everything had been said, but he'd understood enough to learn that one of the party of three was a beta tester and that the others blamed him for not warning them about the boss's change in attack patterns. Nova had been torn at that point. Being a beta tester himself he wanted to explain that the change in attack hadn't been in the beta, but he'd also been afraid of revealing his identity.

Things had however gotten cleared up without him, and thankfully no one had been killed. At least not that time. Stories had begun to circulate recently of known beta testers being ganged up on and stripped of all their equipment. They were then left in a mob heavy area alone. Naturally they never survived. This had prompted Nova to hide his knowledge from the beta test from everyone bar other testers. He did leak bits of info that he had out through a few different info brokers, but he kept his name to himself so as not to reveal that he had been a 'beater'.

As they finally came in sight of the town Silvae seemed to gather a little bit of extra strength and quickened her pace, much to Nova's relief. He'd intended on going back to check on his younger brother in the Town of Beginnings, but now that he looked up at the sky he could see things growing rapidly darker. Nova knew he wouldn't be making it to the Town Beginnings until tomorrow. He cursed himself for choosing to walk rather than teleport. Although, if he had this girl would probably be dead, so perhaps it wasn't such a bad thing.

As the two came in sight of an inn with a sign displaying a yellow bull Silvae seemed to run out of her extra burst of energy. She trudged very slowly inside and Nova sat her down at a table. He went over to the NPC innkeeper and asked if there was a player named Arwen staying here. The innkeeper said yes and Nova sent her a message, telling her that her friend named Silvae was downstairs in a bad way.

About a minute later there was the sound of hurried feet on the steps and a girl of around fifteen with long black hair hurried into the room. She saw Silvae sitting at a table in the far corner as well as Nova leaning against the wall next to her. She hurried over to them. "What happened?" she asked.

"You're Arwen?" asked Nova.

"Yes," she said.

"I found your friend alone with wolves," explained Nova. "She was almost dead."

"Thank you for saving her," said Arwen. She bent over next to Silvae and gently turned the girl's head to face her. "Silvae, are you all right?" she asked.

"A-Arwen," stammered Silvae. Tears slowly began to rolling down her face. Nova had always thought it strange that crying was built into SAO, along with sweating symptoms from getting ill. These didn't work quite like in real life, they only changed the physical appearance of avatar, but if this had been a normal game Nova probably would have admired the detail. "Elenor's dead!" screamed Silvae. Arwen stared at her in shock.

Nova felt awfully uncomfortable. That explained Silvae's state of immense horror when he found her. Her friend must have died shortly before he arrived. He wondered if he should so something. Since he didn't know either of the girls he decided it would be best if he kept quiet.

Arwen looked at the floor and closed her eyes. Then she hugged Silvae and started to cry herself. "It's all right," she whispered to Silvae, "You're safe. Elenor was brave; she wouldn't want you to blame yourself over this." Nova looked at the dark haired girl in surprise. Despite her tears her voice was level, and she seemed in control of herself. Silvae sobbed into Arwen's shoulder for a little while, and when she stopped Arwen helped her to her feet. "Could you wait here for me please?" she asked Nova.

Nova nodded and watched as Arwen lead her friend upstairs, presumably to her room. Five minutes later she was down again. "Thank you for saving her," said Arwen.

"I would like to have saved your other friend as well," said Nova. "I didn't see it happen."

"Then there's nothing you could have done," replied Arwen simply. Nova was genuinely amazed how well she was keeping herself together under the circumstances. "Elenor's the third one of us to die now," she went on in a husky voice. "The elven of us came to the game as part of an online group. We wanted a way we could all meet up without having to fly to a different country you see. But, once things became the way they are now, we've been trying to keep ourselves alive. I'm afraid we're not very good at this game though," she added worriedly. "I don't tell the others but, but I'm not sure any of us are going to survive." She shook her head, "I'm sorry to burden you with all this," she said. "I think I just needed to say it. If there's anything I can do to pay you back for saving Silvae."

"Don't worry about it," said Nova. "But, if you're not good at the game then what are you doing outside the Town of Beginnings?"

"We wanted to help," said Arwen lamely. "We left the town and went to the next one. But then we realised we weren't high enough level to get back again. On our way here we lost Lilly and we lost Marcy when we tried to go back again. We've been trying very carefully to level for the past few weeks but, now Silvae is dead as well. I don't know what we're going to do," she finished, putting her head in her hands.

Nova was silent for a few moments. "I can get you there," he said.

"What?"

"I can get you back to the Town of Beginnings," he explained. "I'm a frontliner so I can beat all the mobs we encounter. I'm headed to the Town to see my little brother anyway so this isn't a problem for me."

"I can't ask you to," Arwen began.

"You didn't ask," interrupted Nova, "I offered. It still won't be safe," he warned, "But you'd have a pretty good chance of getting back safely."

Arwen bit her lip worriedly, "I'll need to talk it over with the others," she said. "But, thank you."

Nova nodded before heading over to the innkeeper to rent a room. He paused, "by the way," he said to Arwen, "if you have trouble farming, then how do you pay for your rooms."

"I have a friend who's been kind enough to help with that," said Arwen. "She's been trying to teach us how to fight but, she's still learning herself."

"I see," said Nova. Whoever this friend was she must be having a hard time progressing; providing accommodations for so many players would take all of her available Col. "So, we'll talk more about this in the morning then?" he asked. Arwen nodded before hurrying upstairs. Nova sighed and brought up his menu to send a message to his brother, explaining why he hadn't arrived today, and why he'd be late coming tomorrow.

The next day came downstairs to find a crowd of girls sitting at the tables from the night before, including Silvae and Arwen. When Arwen saw him she jumped up with an excited smile on her face. "Here he is!" she called. Her friends all turned to look at Nova with various expressions. Some were hopeful, others frightened and one girl with sandy brown hair looked mistrustful.

"Um, hello," said Nova nervously. Under more normal circumstances he might have thought he was rather lucky to have so many girls putting their attention on him, but right now he would have passed if he could. Arwen quickly introduced him to the rest of her friends. There was a Dawn, Sarah (the girl who didn't seem to like him very much), her sister Diana, Nixie-a little jet black haired girl of about thirteen; far too young to be playing the game-, Ajia and Suzu. Then to his surprise there was another girl.

She was blonde and unlike the other girls was actually wearing some decent level armour for this area. "This is the friend I mentioned," explained Arwen. "Toji this is Nova."

The girl bowed. "It's nice to meet you," she said in English.

"Likewise," said Nova.

"Thanks for helping my friends," said Toji, continuing to speak in English, presumably so that the others would have a harder time following what she said. "I'd have helped them out myself but I'm not high level enough to look out for them all at once."

"You must have been held back a lot from having to look after them," said Nova. "Paying for inn rooms for so many people isn't cheap."

Toji shrugged, "what else was I supposed to do, let them sleep outside?"

"Are you coming with us today?" asked Nova.

Toji nodded, "I'm Level 10 so I should still be some help."

"Thanks," said Nova, "I'm Level 14 but I'm still not sure I can watch out for everyone. Bring up the rear for me?"

"You got it," said Toji brightly.

Things weren't too bad at first. There were a few stray wolves that wandered onto the path but Nova was able to deal with these without too much trouble. He told the girls to stay back and did his best to keep all the agro on himself while he cut the monsters down. He wasn't an amazing swordsman, but he'd had extra time to get used to fighting with a sword in the beta. On top of that he spent some time looking at proper fencing techniques between the official release and the closing of the beta. He still wasn't great, but he was good enough.

It was when they were about halfway that things got a little hairy. Of all the rotten luck they could have had, a pair of goblin sentries appeared on the path ahead. Navo swallowed nervously. Goblin ambushes were an event that could occur on any floor when you were far enough away from a town. The lower your level the lower the chance of it occurring. Unfortunately his presence had raised the group's average level some ways above the maximum level for this area.

The girls drew close together behind him as a second pair of the diminutive green skins appeared at the back of the party. Nova looked to either side for some way of escape but they were in the middle of a wood and if they left the path they'd likely encounter large numbers of mobs.

"What is this?" asked Arwen, "Where did they come from?"

"It's an event with a low chance of occurrence," explained Nova. "The probability went up because I was with you."

"Can you beat them?" she asked.

"The two at the front maybe but..." his voice trailed off. Toji might manage one of the goblins at her Level, but she'd never be able to handle two at once. Nova looked over his shoulder at Arwen as the goblin began to spout of a line of dialogue. "I'm going to need you girls to help Toji with one of the goblins at the rear. She won't be able to fight them both alone."

Arwen swallowed nervously. Before she could say anything the four monsters attacked. Nova rushed forwards and used a two second stun on one of the goblins before attacking the other with the fastest flurry of blows he could manage. The mob deflected a few but took several hits. Nova powered up Wounding Strike and dashed forwards, cleaving the attacker in two before causing it to shatter into bright shards.

Then the other goblin was on him and he had to drop back into a defensive style of combat. He needed to wait for the mob to make a pause in its attack pattern so that he could turn things around. Eventually the goblin took a step back and snarled. It started to reel off a generic line about how it'd gut Nova like a fish before the player had drawn his glowing blue blade across its chest. The mob's line was cut off as it went back into the combat stance. Before it could do anything more Nova had slashed it multiple times with normal attacks before finishing with a second Wounding Strike. The second goblin burst into shards.

Nova turned around to see what had happened at the far end of the group. Toji was still exchanging blows with one of the goblins, taking most of the mobs attacks directly to her shield, though some damage slipped through. As Nova watched she thrust her sword into the creature's gut and it exploded.

The other was surrounded on all sides by the eight poorly equipped female players. It had picked out Dawn for its target and the red head was frantically attempting to parry its attacks. She was not very successful, judging from the multiple red lines covering her body already. She tripped and fell to the ground. Before the mob could finish her it was bowled over by Nixie as she recklessly tackled the creature to the ground with her eyes squeezed tightly shut. She stabbed frantically at the goblin with her sword but the mob was able to easily push her off and cut her across the chest. The small girl screamed as the goblin advanced on her.

Then Arwen moved in, jabbing at the monster with her spear warily. It was the most basic version of the weapon available-in fact most of the weapons the girls were using were still starting weapons-so it did very little damage. So little effect did it have that the goblin's agro remained trained on Nixie. Seeing she hadn't done enough Arwen more or less jumped onto the goblin's back and started hammering it with the shaft of her weapon. It would have looked comical if the situation hadn't been so dangerous.

Then to Nova's amazement the girls all began to start stabbing at the goblin and several of them jumped onto it as well, weighing the mob down to the ground. Nova exchanged a bewildered look with Toji who shrugged. After about thirty seconds of this the goblin exploded into shards, leaving the group to fall into a heap as their target vanished. "We did it!" cried Ajia excitedly.

"Is everyone all right?" asked Nova, helping Arwen to her feet. Each of the girls checked their HP gauges and gave (somewhat surprised) nods. All bar Dawn that is.

"Mine's pretty low," she said. "It's dropped into the red zone. Has anyone got a healing item?"

Nova grimaced; he didn't have any heal potions left. He looked at Toji hopefully but she shook her head. "It looks like we don't," he said. "But, it isn't far to go now, so just stick to the centre of the group and you'll be fine." Dawn nodded, a little nervous from her precarious state. The whole group seemed to have been encouraged by their success however, even if it had been a bit ridiculous to watch.

After another half hour of cautious progress the group reached the Town of Beginnings. It had taken them a total of two hours to get there because of how slow they'd had to go, but they'd made it without a single casualty. The girls all hurried inside the safety of the Town with delight shinning from their faces. Nova followed more slowly.

"Will you be all right now?" he asked Arwen.

She nodded. "Thank you so much for this," she said. "And, even if things are very dangerous out there, I still want to help."

"Well, try to take things more slowly this time," Nova said. "You can't help anyone if you die." Arwen nodded. "Stick to fighting boar mobs outside the town for a while, and do it in large groups," advised Nova. "Also, try to find a copy of the Guide Book. It goes over most of the basic aspects of the game and should help you get started properly. Ask a few different players and you should get to the right place. And don't worry, it's free."

Arwen nodded with a bright smile. "Thank you again," she said. "I really don't how we can make up for this."

"Be there when we clear Floor 100," said Nova. "That will be enough for me."

"I'll try," said Arwen. "Is there some way I could keep in contact with you? If you don't mind that is!" she added hurriedly.

"That would be fine," said Nova with a cheery smile. He opened his menu and sent Arwen a friend request. She read over the small message for a moment, then tapped the accept button.

"Goodbye!" she called as she hurried after her firends.

Nova sighed and shook his head. He hoped they'd all be okay. Up until this point he'd only helped other players to a very small extent through indirect pieces of advice. Doing something like this really did make him feel as if he'd done the right thing and he found himself smiling. At that point he decided he'd do his best to help out any other players who needed it, regardless of how it might slow him down. People's lives were more important than progress in some stupid game after all.


	15. Chapter 11

**Okay, time for an update on the main story line about 47 Floors in the future. Not much happens in this chapter, just lots of fighting. I'm not finished with the sideline stories yet, but I've decided to intersperse them amoungst 'normal' chapters. Enjoy!**

Chapter 11: The Tournament

Max Floor: 50 Level: 66

The sound of blade on blade echoed throughout the large room. The two players that were currently facing off were an adult man in his late twenties with short dark hair, black skin and a massively oversized long sword, and a far more limber looking ginger boy in his late teens armed with an arming sword and a buckler. The older man had a vast advantage in terms of sheer power, but the teen was doing a good job of keeping him at arm's length. Eltelm had to admit the match was interesting to watch. The two fighters had been at the duel for a good two minutes now and both had dropped each other's health quite low.

The combat was taking place inside of an arena of sorts, designed a little like a roman coliseum cut from sky blue rock. White trimmed many of the edges and created a very vibrant effect. Seats went up in six tiers around the central sand pit where the combatants fought, which was about ten metres wide. The roof arched overhead with a calm smooth curve, the ceiling covered in paintings of various warriors fighting monsters. Many of those same monsters could be found as bosses on this floor and the one bellow it. The only unrecognised one was the huge green hydra exploding out of a green sea in the very middle. People had summarised that this beast must be the floor boss.

The tournament here was being held as part of an event and all players above level 60 were eligible to compete. When Eltelm first heard about it he'd decided to come in on the day and take a look. Then of course certain people (an unpleasant glare in Dawn's direction) had thought that it would be a brilliant idea if he entered. Eltelm had declined straight away, but when every single one of his friends seemed to think the same thing he'd rapidly found himself pressed into it. "It'll be your perfect premier as our new guild's champion," Arwen had said.

The Starlit Thegns were not actually a guild as of yet. However, the Thegns and Shooting Stars had been pondering a merger between them for two floors now. Since it had been Toji and Eltelm who had pulled them together in the first place during the 45th floor boss fight, they would naturally be drawn into the new guild once the spare funds to make it could be raised. Since Eltelm had the highest Level out of everyone in the 'guild' it hadn't taken long for the others to start referring to him as their champion. That had embarrassed him to say the least (once Toji had explained what the word meant), but he figured it could be worse.

And truth be told, fighting in the tournament hadn't been too bad thus far. The first few rounds hadn't been tricky, but the semi-final had proved to be far more exhilarating. The last round was set to be a multiplayer melee with all five finalists participating in a single battle. The rule simply was that if your health dropped below half then you were out and could not suffer any more damage. As the teen slipped up his footing and took a direct hit from his opponent's sword, Eltelm felt just the faintest hint of nerves. That had been the last of the semi-finals. The next round would be the last.

Bouncing up and down like a small child from anticipation Eltelm waited at the edge of the arena, looking across at the other five players who'd been assembled there. The excitement he felt was due to the fact that there was more than one player here who he'd wanted an excuse to duel for a long time. "Keep still and calm down," hissed Toji in German from her seat just behind him.

"Easy for you to say," replied Eltelm in the same language. He could manage a passable conversation in Japanese by now, but he preferred his native tongue right now for privacy.

"Look, just do what it is you do best and you'll be fine," she said encouragingly. "Besides, it's not like we need the prize money all that bad anyway. This is for fun remember?"

"I know, I'm just a little excited that's all." He had good reason to be. He'd never duelled against the Golden Lion Shal before, and the solo player had shown himself to be formidable during the boss fights. On top of that the top guilds had sent representatives to the tournament, more for political reasons than actually needing the prize of course. A formidable looking man with short dark hair named Icer wielding a flail and tall shield was there for the Dragon Alliance. It was the representative for the Knights of the Blood Oath that got Eltelm excited. He'd only ever duelled against the one rapier user before, but it had been enough to show him that it was unwise to underestimate them just because of their poorer blocking capabilities. Now, he was about to go up against the strongest rapier user in the game. The idea of fighting Asuna the Lightning Flash sent tingles up and down his spine. It would be a very welcome challenge.

Getting a challenging experience in SAO was something very dangerous, since you could only usually do it by risking your own life, something very few people were keen on doing. Through a duel however, a skilled player could enjoy a fine test of skill without running any significant risk of death. That was the main thing that had gotten Eltelm to join this tournament in the first place. He wasn't sure if he could win or not, but that wasn't what this was all about anyway. Although, since sword skills were not permitted in this fight Eltelm had a much better chance than he would have had otherwise.

A countdown appeared in the air in the middle of the arena, and began to go down from thirty. Eltelm took a deep breath to calm his nerves, and then wrapped his fingers around the hilt of his sword. He had what was considered to be a rather unusual taste when it came to swords. Most people only ever took what they called 'light' longswords if they intended to use them one handed. Anyone who intended to fight with two hands took the biggest and most powerful 'heavy' blades they could get their hands on. Eltelm however was used to being able to move quickly with his weapon, and gladly sacrificed the greater power granted by a heavy longsword in favour of manoeuvrability.

He also tended to shy away from overtly fancy swords, preferring simple steel to the more exotic types of weapon. He'd surprised everyone around when he'd cracked up laughing upon hearing that Kirito's sword Elucidator was supposedly made from obsidian. He'd explained that obsidian was in reality extremely brittle, and if someone had had the nerve to make an actual obsidian sword in real life it would have been shattered on the first blow. Regardless of the fact that steel was actually not considered the best material for swords in the game, Eltelm tended to follow the path of realism whenever he could. As a result nearly every sword he'd owned since the thirty second floor had been custom made.

His current blade was no exception, being simple enough in design with an ordinary enough steel blade that tapered to a point late in the blade, as its primary use was cutting rather than thrusting. The guard was curved and despite the sword supposedly being made from 'Dwarven Steel' it looked to be made of gold. The pommel had an emerald set in it, which Eltelm thought looked nice but as he said, "would not have belonged on a real battle field sword, but rather on a ceremonial weapon."

As it slipped smoothly out of its sheath there was the usual slight scraping sound. Initially Eltelm had hated it, claiming that a real blade would not have produced such a noise unless there was something wrong with it, but after a time it had become a part of his routine and it now it actually comforted him somewhat. Eyes closed, he brought up the blade so that the edge was running parallel to his face and breathed deeply. A smile crept over his face as he took a step forwards out into the arena, lowering his sword into a middle guard. He was often annoyed that he'd never gotten the chance to learn a more advanced opening stance. However, this one served him well enough.

The clock counted down as the room was filled with the sound of drawing swords. A deathly hush fell over the crowd as they watched and waited eagerly. There were at least a thousand people here, many of them from the middle floors, but some from the front lines and lower floors as well.

8...

7...

6...

5...

4...

Eltelm's eyes snapped open and his smile widened.

3...

2...

1...

Go!

Instead of doing what everyone might have expected of him and charging straight in, Eltelm stood calmly and watched as the other players all rushed to the middle of the arena. The basic notion of his plan was simple: let the others start the fight, then let himself pick his own point of engagement. Shal went head on against Icer, their shields slamming against each other before the two STR based players shoved each other backwards. Asuna slipped through the opening gap smartly and clashed her blade against the other competitor, a moderately armed player with a shield and bright red arming sword that Eltelm didn't know from the front lines. The defending player took the hit smartly on the middle of his shield and proceeded to retaliate with a sharp downwards slash that Asuna danced backwards and away from.

Picking his mark Eltelm moved. His primary focus in levelling was his AGI stat, although he'd put a lot into STR as well. As a result he could move with incredible speed so long as his reactions could keep up. The shield user barely had time to register he was coming from the side before he was there. They moved their sword into position with surprising calm and managed a clumsy parry. Eltelm had to give him a mark of respect for that. One of the most important rules of fighting was to stay calm; if you lost it then your coordination dropped and odds are you were a goner.

Even with the parry though, Eltelm was able to slip his bade around the guard and land an indirect blow on their side. With a grunt they took a step back and took a more defensive stance, unsure if he should be more concerned about Asuna or Eltelm. Asuna decided for him, switching targets and sending four stabs in Eltelm's direction. Most players would have missed most if not all of these. Most front liners would probably have missed one. Eltelm missed none, smartly deflecting the first three before taking a step back to avoid the fourth.

He then counter attacked with a simple down wards strike that Asuna backed off from. The one big disadvantage of using a rapier was that you could only really deflect an attack from any other type of weapon. A head on block was highly inadvisable as your guard would most likely be shattered, and there was even a risk of your weapon breaking. Of course, the immense speed with which it allowed you to fight helped to make up for it.

Choosing to pay Asuna a brief second of ignorance Eltelm span on his heel towards the shield user. The player was still watching in indecision, unable to choose who to attack. Eltelm decided to simply rush him, leaping forwards and sending six quick blows at separate parts of his body. To his credit he managed to deflect all of these with his shield, convincing Eltelm he needed to try something new. He blocked the retaliatory strike easily and in a way that was becoming somewhat signature to him, locked the sword with his guard and pushed it down. With his opponent's sword down Eltelm smartly performed a draw cut down the shield user's arm. It wasn't a direct hit to their body so it did less damage, but it was a clean blow.

Scrambling backwards Eltelm turned to check the rest of the arena. He was only just in time to parry a swing at his head from Shal, who had broken off from his fight with Icer, at least for the time being. Eltelm had to admit that the number of shield users in the fight annoyed him in the extreme, since it meant that he had a more difficult time landing a blow. Before Shal could attack again Eltelm struck at his head. This prompted his opponent's shield to move up to deflect it, but before it could reach that point Eltelm whipped his weapon to the right and then down. His sword produced a satisfying nick on Shal's left side before Eltelm withdrew slightly.

The melee continued in this fashion for the next three minutes. Each player swapped out to a new partner regularly, exchanged a few blows then switched to a new target. The interesting point was that there was always one person not engaged at that moment, so you had to watch your back. This was what drove the constant switching. The audience clearly loved it as there were frequent loud rounds of applause to be heard whenever someone landed a hit.

Finally someone went down. The unknown shield user switched targets unexpectedly in an effort to get the upper hand and charged Shal. The soloer was surprised but reacted in good form by raising his shield to meet the anticipated sword strike. But it did not come. Instead the other player hooked Shal's shield with the edge of their own and tugged hard. Shal was unprepared for it and his shield was pulled aside. The other then quickly followed up with a shield bash to the middle of his chest that sent Shal sprawling onto his back.

It all happened so fast that most people hadn't fully comprehended what had happened as the unknown stabbed Shal through the chest, bringing him into the elimination zone. There was brief pause, and then a cheer erupted from the crowd. The first 'kill' of the finals. Shal reluctantly stepped back to allow the fight to continue without his involvement.

Now things were going to be different, Eltelm realised. There was no need to switch over, so the melee would likely turn into a pair of one-on-one duels. Not that that was a problem of course. Icer was soon squaring off against the other shield user while Eltelm found himself facing Asuna again. He smiled; this was going to be fun. So far the vice commander had shown herself to be just as deadly as he'd hoped.

Flicking his sword in a slight flourish Eltelm began to circle around her. She kept the tip of her weapon up, stepping around in sync with him. The two kept their eyes locked intently, each waiting for the other to make the first move. The anticipation was palpable. Then she moved.

It was a sharp thrust forwards met by an equally sharp deflection. Then another thrust and another and another, coming more rapidly each time. Every one was met with a calm flick of the wrist and knocked aside. Before long it was a silver blur of thrusts and parries that many members of the audience could not hope to follow. Finally, after nearly a full minute of this Asuna backed down to try something different.

The moment her attacked stop Eltelm threw himself at her. Admittedly he'd rather have waited a moment or two to catch his bearings but he needed to take the upper hand quickly. The precarious situation of blocking thrusts was not at all to his liking. Sooner or later one of the two would slip up and if he slipped up it would be far worse than for her. He made a hard slash that would have taken her from the shoulder across her chest if it had hit. Instead it glanced off her blade as she just managed to parry. The advantage of Eltelm's style of strike was that it did not leave the attacker open for more than a split second, and during that time your opponent was usually far too busy dealing with the attack itself. He never allowed his sword to complete the full motion of the swing and drop his guard. Instead, he flicked it back up again once the important part of the stroke was complete.

This allowed him to strike again almost straight away, this time drawing from the opposite direction. Asuna side stepped the attack and launched a thrust at his left shoulder. It was a simple matter of bringing his sword over to the left to knock it aside. It simple, but that didn't make it easy. Reaction time was everything in situations like this. After deflecting the attack he launched another stroke aimed at her head.

Asuna turned her body and slide to one side. Keeping up her momentum she span around into a slash across Eltelm's chest. It wasn't the most ideal sort of strike for a rapier, but it would still be effective enough to have a noticeable impact. In the time it took to make the spin however Eltelm had already managed to bring his sword back into a blocking position and took the rapier side on. Asuna pulled her weapon straight back and stood poised, waiting for his next attack.

So it continued for the next six or so minutes. Asuna couldn't land a blow because of how conservative Eltelm's fighting style was, and Eltelm couldn't land a blow because of how fast Asuna was. Every time his sword moved for her she simply wasn't there anymore. It might have frustrated other people, but Eltelm could not stop beaming. He hadn't had this much in ages.

Eventually the two took several steps back to take what seemed to be a mutually agreed breather. Fighting like this was rather intense to say the least. Even if it wouldn't tax your body all that much in SAO, it certainly taxed your mind. Asuna flashed the sign for time out and Eltelm nodded earnestly. They both looked at the other appraisingly. "Why are you happy?" asked Asuna, her voice carrying a tone of exasperation.

"Because this is fun," replied Eltelm, still grinning.

Asuna rolled her eyes at that. "It's exhausting," she retorted. At least, he was pretty sure that's what she said. It made the most sense anyway.

"But fun," he said again. "You're fast," he added with a respectful nod.

"So are you," she replied. "Your defence is very good."

"Thanks," he said. He shook himself slightly and flourished his sword a few times in the air in front of him in a draw cut. "Ready?" he asked. Asuna nodded, and the hint of smile did hook at her hitherto serious mouth. Then the insanity resumed. At least that was how Tails described it afterwards. The two players met in a flurry of blows and parries and continued as they had been for the past few minutes.

The only point at which they were interrupted was when Icer managed to win his own fight. Eltelm wasn't sure how it happened as his attention was focused on his own fight, and apparently all of his friends were watching him and Asuna as well. All he knew was that suddenly the other shield user was backing away with both hands in the air and no more shield. It must have taken quite a beating. Eltelm noticed abnormal movement in his peripheral vision only just in time to jump backwards and avoid the oncoming swing.

He frowned in disappointment. He'd been enjoying his duel and wasn't remotely happy to have it interrupted. Still, he'd been expecting it eventually. He ducked the next attack easily and launched several of his own. He quickly switched from his more conservative style into a more aggressive one, allowing his swings to be a little wider and gather more momentum. It wasn't as if he was taking great hacks at his target, but the window of vulnerability widened to about a second and a half. Considering how fast things could happen in swordplay that was a very real opening.

Icer blocked each attack with his shield with reasonable skill but slowly began to take steps backwards. He lashed out with his flail, forcing Eltelm to jump backwards. The motion left him very open on his right side however. Asuna spotted it and didn't waste a second. She darted in and managed to get a single solid jab on him before he was able to cover himself. This naturally left Asuna open and Eltelm made a quick thrust in her direction. She darted back out of the way as Eltelm pulled his own sword back closer to his body.

All three looked at each other for a second, each unsure of who to go for. If someone went for one target, they'd leave themselves open to another. Eventually Icer thrust his shield towards Eltelm and swung his flail at Asuna. The girl jumped back nimbly, but it seemed like the stalemate had been broken at no cost to Icer. At least, that was what he thought. Since he couldn't actually do anything to counter attack him immediately Eltelm simply rushed his shield. It was easy enough to side step the guard while his opponent was distracted and slash a long cut down his back. Icer snapped in frustration as his HP dropped into the yellow zone and he threw up his hands before leaving the arena.

The two remaining combatants eyed each other down for the last phase of the combat. A single duel with no possible interruptions. They were both low in the green zone, and a single direct hit would win the fight. Eltelm was revelling in this challenge now. It was strange really; he'd never seemed to do very well when he fought against his friends at the club. Once the death game had begun however, he seemed to find a hidden reserve inside of himself. He was able to strike faster and react faster than he'd ever been able to before. His rudimentary fencing knowledge had allowed him to climb quickly to the top of the pack as far as sword users were concerned, and this new found well of skill seemed to be able to keep him there. Of course, he wasn't sure just where he stood amongst the best swordsmen in the game. Now he might just be able to get a better idea of that.

There was a split second of perfect stillness. And then the two of them were at each other again. Eltelm continued his defensive fighting style while Asuna kept evading his attacks. The fight went on and on and some of the crowd had begun to become less excited. Most however were on the edge of their seats, as it looked like the fight could end at any second. Indeed it could, since all it would take was a single slip up and the fight was done.

Finally, Eltelm saw an opening. Asuna's thrust was coming just a little too wide. He parried it as usual but this time kept the motion going. He shoved her sword far down to the side and rushed forwards, right hand gripping the top of the hilt, left hand planted on the pommel. The point of his blade was within two inches of her when she started to move. As Asuna began to turn, everything seemed to slow down. Closer, closer the point of his sword came, but further and further she turned. Then, everything seemed to snap back into full speed and the two fighters were skidding to a sudden stop, their backs to each other.

They stood panting for a moment; neither properly registering what had happened. Then the crowd cheered in delight with dozens of whoops and claps echoing through the arena. Eltelm let out a long breath and looked up at the sign that had appeared. Winner: Asuna. He'd been too slow by less than a second. He'd missed her and she'd stabbed him in the back as he went past.

Despite losing he turned with a smile and sheathed his weapon. "Good fight," he said, offering his hand.

"Same to you," she said, sheathing her own weapon and shaking his hand. They both bowed and then turned to leave the arena from opposite exits. Asuna was swamped with fans almost straight away, and her bodyguard (not that she needed one from a practical standpoint) began to wave them away. Eltelm was greeted by plenty of excited faces as well, just not anywhere near as many, and most of them his friends.

He didn't care much though. "That was brilliant!" exclaimed Lee, clapping him on the back.

"Thanks," said Eltelm sheepishly.

"Yeah, you were amazing!" said Ajia.

"It was, something," admitted Sarah, her usual quiet voice abnormally active sounding.

"Thanks guys," said Eltelm. "But, I didn't win," he added.

"Who cares?!" spluttered Toji, "It was great!" She hugged Eltelm and he happily hugged her back. Not that he'd admit that happily part to anyone else mind you. Of course, judging from the looks on the others' faces he didn't need to.

"And hey," added Dawn, twirling her light brown hair with her fingers, "there's still a prize for second place isn't there?"

"Oh yeah," said Eltelm. Letting go of Toji he opened his inventory and found a new item. 'Tourney of Ice, 2nd Place Prize' it said. Eltelm double tapped on it and a second message popped up telling him that the item had added three new things to him inventory. There was a silver medal with a hydra on it that Eltelm figured he'd just put in a box somewhere, a fancy black leather chest piece with silver patterns on it ("goes with the cloak," Lee pointed out) and the last most significant item was 500,000 Col. "Well," he began slowly, "it looks like the Starlit Thegns are going to be a guild soon more than planned. I think we can do it next floor." A chorus of cheers followed his words.


	16. Chapter 12

**Another of the four major Boss battles. I'm making sure to devote at least an entire chapter to Floors 25, 50, 75 and 100. Enjoy!**

Chapter 12: The Hydra

Max Floor: 50 Level: 67

After the battle against the boss on Floor 25, there was a lot of anticipation over what the boss of Floor 50 would be like. The implication was that every twenty five floors there was a rapid escalation in difficulty once you came to the boss. In most boss fights the raid parties could get through without losing a single player, though accidents sometimes happened. On Floor 25 they'd lost more players than they had on any other floor. A similar result was anticipated here.

Eltelm had expected that this would drive most people away from participating in the raid, but amazingly the raid group was the largest it had ever been. There had to be at least a hundred players here, three times the usual numbers of the Assault Team. This wasn't every player on the front lines of course. There were around a thousand players on the upper floors, and around three hundred of those were on the highest floor. So far there had yet to be a boss fight in which all of these three hundred players participated, but this was the closest they had come so far.

The huge group milled around in front of the large blue doors of the Boss Room. There had to be at least a dozen guilds here along with nearly every solo player on the front lines. The Assault Team itself had all showed up for this fight and were pooled towards the front of the group nearest to the door. Eltelm looked around at the players he'd become accustomed to fighting alongside over the course of the last ten or so floors. Even though he'd showed up for each boss fight, he had up until recently been unable to communicate effectively with the Assault Team members. This had meant that while he was in terms of level one of them, he was never able to fight as part of their thirty or so man unit. Since Floor 40 he'd been able to start changing that.

The Assault Team was almost exclusively composed of players from the Knights and Dragon Alliance, with exception of Kirito, Shal and Eltelm himself being the only three solo players left in the unit. The implications from Shal were that he was planning on joining the Knights soon, so that would just leave Eltelm and Kirito as the last two soloers on the Team. Right now, while all the other players were frantically exchanging last minute information, the Assault Team was silent. Eltelm found it strangely comforting how right before a boss fight they all fell into a calm silence, performing last minute checks over their gear. Eltelm hummed quietly to himself, slipping a few words in here and there which would have sounded like nonsense to anybody with sharp enough hearing to catch them.

He inspected his sword and checked his crystals for the sixth time. Then Heathcliff seemed to decide that the time had come and made his way over to the door where everyone would be able to see him. "Fellow clears!" he began, and so wound his way through a fairly normal speech. Eltelm could only understand about sixty percent of it, but he wasn't listening all that closely anyway. He already had all of the information there was to know on this boss, which was a good amount for the initial part of the fight.

Jörmungand the hydra-being named after the infamous Midgard Serpent of Norse mythology-was a fifteen metre tall reptilian beast with three heads. Technically Jörmungand had been a giant snake, but that didn't matter all that much right now. Each head had its own special aspect. The central head was capable of breathing fire, while the one on the left was heavily armoured with its only weak point being the opening in its armour at its throat. The head on the right was capable of poisoning whoever it bit, the poison dealing ten damage per second and lasting for a full hundred seconds. This by itself wasn't too bad as the fire breath did twice as much damage and all in one hit. But the fire could be extinguished by entering the large pool of water inside of the boss room, while the poison could not be removed and prevented all healing items from working while it was applied. This was something of a scare to say the least. Each head possessed two health bars of its own, so presumably they needed to 'kill' all three heads separately in order to win.

"I wish you all good luck," finished Heathcliff, before he turned and pushed open the doors behind him. There was a great noise of long breaths drawn and feet shuffled from people away behind Eltelm, but silence from those immediately around him. These players were the most experienced in the game; they weren't about to catch nerves before a boss fight. Well, they at least weren't going to show that they had.

The raid group advanced slowly into the room, Heathcliff leading the way as was the usual custom. The chamber was a huge cave of dark stone. The ceiling had to be at least forty metres up in the air, and the back was a good hundred metres away from the entrance. A massive pool dominated the centre of the room, the blue water illuminated by an unknown light source. Reflections off the water sent a crazy fluctuating pattern of blue lines over the entire room.

At the back and towards the bottom of the pool there was what appeared to be a darker patch and as the players filed into the room and approached it, the dark patch widened outwards. The shadow in the water unfurled itself and increased in size until it filled the better part of the waters. Heathcliff strode towards the edge of the pool (which thinking about it was closer to an underground lake) and stepped into the shallows. The dark shape twitched as he did so but nothing else happened. Other players approached the water's edge, weapons drawn and eyeing the shape warily.

Then there was a huge rush of water and everyone in the room was drenched by a great wave. As Eltelm blinked his vision clear he could see a massive, scaly black shape standing in the shallows and looming over the KBO leader. There had been spectacular bosses before, but Eltelm's eyes widened at the sight of Jörmungand, the three headed, dripping wet with glistening scales as it emerged from the water. Heathcliff's gaze became fixed and intent as a golden aura surrounded him. Raising his sword he shouted, "attack!"

And with that all hell was let loose.

Everything was a mad whirlwind of water, steam, scales and steel as players slashed and hacked at the boss's sides. These attacks had no effect, the armoured scales deflecting the blows with ease. "Don't attack the body!" someone called, "Aim for the heads!"

The Armoured Head swooped down and grabbed a player in its jaws. It shook them around and sank its fangs in deep. The player screamed and frantically stabbed at the head without success. The helmet like thickening of the scales in that area deflected all of the panicked thrusts. Before the head could get up too high however, Asuna dashed in and thrust her rapier up into the creature's throat. It howled and dropped the hapless player who was hurriedly dragged away from the boss to be healed. The attack had only done a very limited amount of damage to the head, but it was a start.

A focus was quickly developed against the Armoured Head, with players preferring to dive out of the way of the poisonous one. The flame breath of the other was ineffective so long as the players were in the water, so the attackers quickly hastened to wade out into the small lake. This of course carried an element of risk as it was possible to drown in SAO. Eltelm at one point lost his footing a fell into the deeper section of the water, his head slipping below the surface. Thankfully a hand reached down and pulled him up before he sank too far. "Careful," said Ironhand with a chastising grin as the tank hauled him back to his feet.

"Thanks," replied Eltelm, still gasping slightly for breath. He wasn't the only one to take a dip in the deeper waters as over a dozen players proceeded to slip and fall, only to be pulled out by nearby teammates. The armoured head's first health bar had been depleted and they were working well into its second now. Thus far no casualties, but Eltelm knew that was too good to last.

As the Armoured Head's second health bar dropped to half way it began to thrash about wildly. Players scrambled away from it hastily, the damage dealers retreating back behind the tanks for protection. The head roared and split apart. It broke open into six sections and a massive wailing screech echoed through the room. It warbled from high and low pitches, forcing players to cover their ears in pain.

Once the sound had faded the fight resumed. Now the Armoured Head was far more aggressive, and its usual weak spots seemed to have closed up. Every slash and hack seemed to be in vain, glancing off of armour plating. The head would pull back and then snap forwards six times with such speed it was impossible to follow or predict. Players were quickly forced to fall back to heal, and the number of fighters in the water began to decrease.

Eltelm was ducking under the snapping jaws of the Poisonous Head when someone gave a shout. Scrambling away from the enemy he glanced over to see what was happening. The Armoured Head's mouth was wide open, each segment spread out like some kind of bizarre fleshy pink flower, the petals edged with teeth. A quiet choking sound emanated from it as its health bar drained steadily down. A sword was shoved straight down the Boss's throat and a black ooze was beginning to bubble up from it. As its health bar reached zero the blade was withdrawn and the player who'd had the bright idea of attacking the head's open mouth stepped back.

The head gave a wild scream before it and the neck it was attached to, imploded in a blast of blue light. The other two heads let out moans of pain, and Jörmungand's entire body shivered. Eltelm felt a grin grow wide on his face. One down, two to go. He looked again to see who exactly had stabbed the head in its vulnerable zone. He had to admit he was rather surprised.

"That was good," he said, without taking his eyes off of the Boss where it flailed in the water.

"Thanks," said Diana a little sheepishly. "It was actually Sarah's idea though." That wasn't much of a surprise; out of the two sisters Sarah was definitely the tactician.

Before Eltelm could say anything else Jörmungand was lunging its heads towards the players still gathered in the water or close to it. Fire, sparks and pale green-grey acid were spat in all directions. Eltelm steeled himself before rushing back into the lake.

The players now chose to confront the Fire Breathing Head. Since the death of its companion, it seemed to have stepped up a notch, as the flames that leapt from its jaws evaporated the water into great billowing sheets of mist. Before long anyone outside of the water was unable to see the players themselves, bar the occasional brilliant flash from a sword skill. Even the Boss itself was reduced to a great dark shape.

When you were up close and personal however, things were much worse. The heat was intense on all sides, and even though it couldn't drain your health at all it was disorientating. To add to that there was the white mist swirling around on every side that made it next to impossible to be certain who was where and what was happening. Eltelm focused on the dark orange flashes of fire emitted by the target Head. Once he thought he was close enough he lashed out with everything he had before scrambling away as fast as possible.

The Poison Head was now far more terrifying, as nobody could see it coming more than one or two seconds before it hit them. As Eltelm scrambled out of the water to back out and recover some HP, he saw a small group of players from the Dragon Alliance huddled around a fallen figure. The player on the ground was being held down as they flailed wildly, crying and screaming. "What, what happened?" Eltelm asked Lee, eyes wide with shock.

"He's been poisoned," explained Lee. "His health bar's draining down slowly, but surely. They've already tried everything they can to stop it, but it's no good."

"He's going to die?" asked Eltelm.

"Yeah," said Lee in a husky voice.

"We, we haven't lost anyone have we?" asked Eltelm in panic.

"No, no," said Lee hastily, "We're all fine. At the moment anyway."

"How many has the raid group lost so far?" asked Eltelm apprehensively.

"If we count (something Eltelm didn't understand) then we've lost three," said Lee. "Two poisoned, one drowned." Lee breathed deeply and pushed his dark hair back behind his ears. "I'm going back in again," he announced.

"Don't get yourself killed," advised Eltelm.

"I'll be fine," said Lee. Then he vanished into the dense fog. It looked like the most spectacular and terrible thunderstorm ever. Blue, green, red, yellow and orange flashes sparked through the thick clouds like lighting. Eltelm half expected these flashes to leap out of the cloud and strike out at the people gathered nearby. With a sigh he downed a health potion and took several more steps back. He watched out of the corner of his eye as the terrified player screamed one last time before exploding into shards.

After allowing about a minute for healing and clearing his head Eltelm groaned tohimself and rushed back into the hot and steamy nightmare.

Five minutes later and everyone was scrambling back from the water again as the Fire Breathing Head hissed and spluttered, small jets of flame escaping from its jaws. The two bars above its head were empty, now it was just going through its death throes. Of course, that didn't mean the head was harmless yet. It let out a guttural roar that twisted in the pit of Eltelm's stomach before fire blasted out from between its scales across its head and down its neck. It was as if it had been pumped full of liquid flame to the point where its skin could no longer hold it all in. The second head vanished in a shower of ash and faint sparks, that let out a quiet hiss as they settled in the water. The steam faded to reveal Jörmungand, the now single headed. Six players were dead so far, hopefully they could avoid losing any more to this last head.

The Poison Head hissed, scanning over the entire gathering. It was a bit like it was condemning them all for what they had done to it. It was only a construct of zeros and ones, and yet it still made Eltelm shiver. For the first time he actually wondered about the lore of the Boss they were fighting. Was it actually meant to be intelligent? If so, did it think of itself as being in the right here? Still, it didn't matter what the Boss was supposed to be. What it was was a digital construct that was stopping thousands of real human beings from escaping this virtual world.

Slowly, a white drool began to escape the final head's jaws. It dripped down in long strands to the water. As the white goo made contact with the crystal clear surface it bubbled, popped and hissed like fat in a fry pan. The point of contact turned black and began to grow, pooling out until it reached about a half metre in diameter at which point it faded out of existence. The white slime continued to drip from the monster's jaws, meaning that there were always at least two black circles in the water. _"I'm gonna go out on a limb here and assume we shouldn't touch those." "No kidding. Hopefully all we have to do is avoid touching the, 'saliva', or getting bitten and we should be good. It'll be easier now that there's no steam to obscure people's vision." "Well, try not to get bitten. Getting poisoned would be a pretty lousy way to go." "I'll say. I hope they hang the sycophant who made this place when we're done here. And I hope he doesn't go quickly if you know what I mean."_

The players around Eltelm all seemed to be searching for their final reserves of energy. Eltelm checked a few different spots before finding his. He was going to need a very long sleep once all of this was over. "Hey Toji," he whispered in German to the girl who had somehow ended up on his left.

"What?" she whispered back.

"Do you um, want to get something to eat when this over?" he asked, trying not to sound to awkward.

She smiled. "I'd like that," she said. "So long as you don't get killed that is," she added. "If you die I'll kill you." The two of them laughed a little at that. "See you on the other side," she said with a smile. Despite the seriousness of the situation Eltelm smiled back.

Then he held his sword up parallel to his face and concentrated. The blade began to glow a bright white, shining brightly even through his closed eyelids. Eltelm's eyes snapped open and with a cry he let ran forwards. He was followed and preceded by dozens of players, many of whom a he recognised and knew personally. Sword flashing he hacked at the Boss and found to his delight that he was able to damage not only the head, but also the body. The entire enemy was now vulnerable to attack.

Jörmungand roared and spewed green acid down into the water. Players scrambled away from the resulting dark waters, but a few got hit and screamed as their pain receptors flared. These unfortunates scrambled hastily out of the water to wait out the effects of the poison and hope for the best.

Heathcliff barked a few orders Eltelm had trouble following and most of the players backed off. Things proceeded more cautiously after that with players darting in and out, with the tanks finding less and less to do, since speed seemed to be the key factor. Once enough damage was done the Boss would spit venom in all directions and lunge at anyone nearby with terrifying speed. This meant that the attackers needed to be able to get in and get out quickly. Eltelm himself found that he was just barely able to avoid being hit by Jörmungand's snapping jaws.

The monster's head passed so close by that he was able to-very briefly-look it straight in the eye from less than an arm's length away. He then promptly fell backwards into the water where he struggled to clamber up. He felt a burning sensation on his hand as it came in contact with one of the black pools. Frantically he clambered out of the water and watched as his health steadily drained. Thankfully he had more than enough to protect him from any serious damage, but he was out of the fight for a while now, since it was impossible to remove the debuff.

Finally the icon disappeared and he hastily used a healing crystal. The difference between crystals and potions was based around speed and effectiveness. A potion was more effective (and usually a bit cheaper too) but it took effect over a period of time ranging from five minutes to thirty seconds. A crystal was instant but less effective (and also more expensive). Eltelm had already been sitting on the sidelines for the better part of two minutes; he wasn't about to wait for a potion to take effect on him.

He dove back into the shallow water and lashed out with his white blade, leaving a wide red scar across the Boss's flank before scrambling away to avoid the retaliatory bite. Slowly Jörmungand's health was eroded until only half of the last health bar remained. Everyone waited for a reaction. Nothing happened. The Boss simply sat where it was, head bobbing slightly up and down. But it's stillness was deceptive Eltelm realised; its eyes were moving.

Suddenly the head darted forwards at a speed so great that Eltelm was convinced that all the frames couldn't have been rendered in time. There wasn't even an opportunity for the hapless victim to scream before they were snatched up in the huge jaws and shaken wildly about like a seal in the jaws of a killer whale. The player was then flung carelessly to the side as the Boss advanced, leaping from the water and sending spray in all directions. It bellowed its fury to the cavernous ceiling and began to strike out at the players surrounding it.

Eltelm wasn't quite sure about what was going on. The only words he could hear clearly were someone screaming, "Kill it!" in Japanese. Since there was little else to be done Eltelm obeyed. His sword flashed like a midnight star as he spun it around in his hands to grip the blade. He crashed Skull Breaker into the Boss's side, causing the huge beast to stagger slightly to the side. It turned on him with a howl of rage and its jaws darted down. Eltelm managed to dive out of the way and skid across the stone floor. However he was now flat on his front with his sword out of his hands.

Before Jörmungand could take a second bite there was a flash of blue light across the Boss's face. It was the last bit of damage needed, and the Boss instantly exploded in a forceful shockwave. Eltelm blinked a few times as the last few shards floated down to the ground like snowflakes around him, and the large 'Congratulations!' sign floated in mid air. "Thank you," he managed.

"Don't worry about it," replied Kirito, slipping Elucidator back over his shoulder and offering Eltelm a hand up. He accepted. Eltelm looked around the room dizzily. The battle had ended so suddenly his instincts were still telling him to fight. He picked up his sword from the ground where he'd dropped it and returned the weapon to its sheath.

"Eltelm!" someone called. The voice was not one filled with relief or excitement at the victory. The voice was filled with fear. Eltelm turned with a sinking feeling to the source of the voice. Dawn's eyes were wide and it looked like she was about to panic. She was standing over where the Boss's final victim had been thrown. Eltelm realised he hadn't seen who it was, and terror crept into his veins like ice.

It felt like he was in a nightmare now. He knew something horrible was about to happen, and yet no matter what he tried to do he could not stop it. He took several hesitant steps forwards and then broke into a run as he laid eyes on the victim. Blonde hair a mess and white clothes dripping wet with water. There were two long red marks down her side where the fangs which had delivered the poison had bitten into her.

"No! Nononononono!" he screamed, clutching her frantically to his chest. "Just, just hold on okay? There, there's got to be something. I'll think of something!" His eyes were wild and he looked around them frantically, gaze switching from person to person. His eyes pleaded with them for help in some way, anyway at all, but one by one each person had to look away. It had already been proven; you couldn't counteract the poison. There was nothing anyone could do for her now.

Eltelm felt something touch his cheek and looked down. Toji was gently stroking his face with her hand. "Shhhh," she murmured quietly. "It's okay. I, I already know it's over."

"Don't talk like that!" snapped Eltelm. "There has to be something we can do, some way to save you!"

"You know there isn't," said Toji. She was surprised herself at how calm her voice was. After all, she was dying and probably only had a minute or so left before the poison drained the last of her health. But for whatever reason, whether it was because she was confident in where she'd go after she died, or if it was because she was putting up a front for Eltelm's sake, she felt perfectly calm. "Look, I don't have much time left all right? So, just let me say what I want to."

Eltelm didn't want to let her keep talking. He wanted to act, to do something to help her. The logical part of his brain however, told him the best thing to do now was to let her talk. It was also the kindest thing to do. So, he said nothing. Instead he shut his eyes and nodded.

"You're a really nice person," said Toji, smiling. "You can be a bit particular at times but, I know at heart you're a good person and you don't do things to hurt other people. Don't let my death change that all right? Also," she said with laughter in her voice, "you can stop worrying. I do like you back. It would have been nice if we had more time together; you're one of the best people I know. But, we don't have much time left so, can you please tell me: what's your name?"

Eltelm froze slightly at that. Then he leaned forwards and whispered in her ear. She smiled, "I like it. It sounds, kind of regal to me. My name's Violet, Violet Williams. Get the thing about the eyes now?" she asked. Eltelm nodded. "It was really nice to know you, Edgar. I guess this is goodbye though, huh? Promise that you'll make it all worthwhile okay? Promise you'll help to beat this game. Then, just go and live your life. Can you do that for me?" Eltelm swallowed hard in an effort to force back the tears, and nodded. "Thanks," she said with a genuine smile. "I think my time's pretty much up. Goodbye." And finally she leant up and kissed him lightly on the cheek, before shattering into bright blue polygons.

Eltelm knelt there, clutching at the now empty air as the last traces of Toji's in game avatar floated past his head before dissolving away into nothingness. Then, she was gone. He didn't move, didn't speak, didn't cry.

He could feel his mind making vast sweeping refurbishments now. The furniture went and the carpets were changed out for something less fancy and easier to clean. The windows were removed entirely and every box that didn't contain something absolutely necessary was taken and dumped with a distinct lack of ceremony in the basement. The water flow was cut sharply and his hand moved to wipe those tears that were already there away. Tears were a waste of time anyway. He got to his feet and walked over to where he'd dropped his sword, picked it up and sheathed it. Then he took a deep breath.

He turned and looked behind him-face falling blank-at the people watching him. The entire guild that had yet to be officially formed was there. Their gazes were as sorrowful as his had been only a few moments ago. And some of them were also looking at him with sympathy. Lee took a hesitant step forwards. "Hey, Eltelm are you-

"I am well," came the curt response. It was pronounced perfectly, something Eltelm had up until that point never seemed to be able to do. "I need to go now," he said simply, "goodbye." With that he turned on his heel and walked around the edge of the large pool, the reflections from the water throwing frantic patterns over his black velvet cloak.

"Eltelm wait!" called Lee. Halfway up the steps Eltelm paused and looked back at him. He looked at everyone else there who he had considered a friend. Lee, Arwen, Dawn, Ironhand, Raven, Nixie, Sarah, Tails, Diana, Typhus, Ajia, Bravo, Suzu and Silvae. Each one of them he valued, all for slightly different reasons. It might have struck him as funny that, despite the fact that in the real world his acquaintances had consisted exclusively of males, more of his friends in SAO were girls rather than boys. But it didn't strike him at all. All he thought was that he wasn't about to run the risk of feeling pain because of them.

It wasn't as if he needed them to survive in this game, it wasn't as if he needed anybody! He could go it alone from here. Technically that's what he'd been doing anyway up until this point. Hanging out with his 'friends' had actually caused him to fall a little behind the leaders in terms of level. That could be quickly remedied over the next few floors. It was best, was most efficient if he did this alone. He fought alone, so he would live alone as well. If he was going to fulfill his promise there would be time for living later. For now it was the time to fight, and he fought best alone.

He let himself skim over each pair of eyes one by one. Before he turned away again, he locked his gaze with a pair he hadn't expected too. They were black, black like ash. They had sympathy in them yes, but there was more than that. There was, understanding. These eyes had lost people as well. They didn't have the slightest hint of objection for what he was about to do. This only served to strengthen the last part of resolve Eltelm need to lock and bar the door. Everything was tied down now, all in its proper place.

He turned and pushed open the doors to the next floor. Pulling his hood down so that his eyes were veiled in shadow, he walked away. And became once again, alone.

 **And now we finally come to the 'real' half of the story as I've been thinking of it. Up until this point Eltelm was only ever alone because of circumstances, now, he will be alone because his mind cannot comprehend an alternative. I hope this chapter was effective in conveying the emotions I wanted it to. As always, any constructive criticism is appreciated, along with comments in general.**


	17. Chapter 13

Chapter 13: Alone

Max Floor: 53 Level: 72

Dull, like the edge of a knife that's been in service for years and never once been sharpened, and at the time knew it never would be. But then, the knife thinks once about how it used to be able to cut so smoothly through the things it was applied to, and it feels bitter. It wants more than anything to return to that state where it felt fresh, clear and sharp. It knows that will happen though. Its days are numbered. Sooner or later the cook will throw it out; a blunt knife is of no use to anyone. Dullness, bitterness and dread are all there is for this blunt instrument.

Another blunt instrument-this one shrouded in a black cloak with a silver tree embodied on it-slashed clean through the lizard warrior in his path. The creature shattered into a sparkling blue cloud that was carried away on a non-existent wind. The glittering shards revealed two more of the green reptilian humanoids. These growled and snapped their jaws before charging forwards. A smooth side step around the first one and an easy parry against the second.

Eltelm marked a glowing red gash down the mob's side. He stepped backwards and moved around it, continuing the motion he'd begun with the initial sidestep. He drew his weapon back into the customary pose, the blade flashing bright white before he slashed out and left a far larger red line down the lizard warrior's back. A second later the red line exploded, sending the mob flying several metres away.

Eltelm calmly turned his attention to the other, knowing full well that he had time before the monster he'd just catapulted would be a problem again. The second reptile man snarled and leapt forwards, swing a crudely made scimitar. Eltelm parried this to the side and stabbed the thing directly in the chest. He held the stab for a few moments until the mob exploded from the critical damage. He brought his blade up just in time to meet the other monster's sword in a direct block.

Then he stepped back, let his sword light up, and unleashed hell on the thing. Eight hits of brilliant white light, every blow exploding and burning the mob. Its health bar was empty after the first two hits, but because the game system detected that a combo was in progress it allowed the attack to continue. The strike was completed as Eltelm span his sword around in his hands, grasped the blade tightly and brought the pommel down with all the force his high STR stats could muster on the lizard warrior's head. As soon as the game detected that the combo was over the mob was vaporised.

"Waste of effort," muttered Eltelm to himself. There was no point using his new skill against targets that didn't even have half of the health it took away. The reason he liked to reserve the skill as much as possible, was because it had a cooldown time of two and a half minutes, and left him extremely vulnerable to any other enemies in the area. It was only useful for single target battles and even then Eltelm tried to conserve it. This time he suspected he'd done it because of emotions. This seemed strange because, he couldn't feel any besides a faint pressing in the centre of his chest.

That skill, it was his skill. It was called Shala Efiron. The name was Telari, his own made up language that had been created for his stories years ago, back when he still cared. It meant 'Blazing Fire' and was a term he'd liked to shout sometimes before a fight. He hadn't named the skill itself, Shala Efiron had literally been its name when he unlocked it. That could not be a coincidence he knew. The skill was unique, it had to be, and it had been made just for him. It had a name that only he could understand the significance of.

It was meant to be the secondary title of Eltelm, the High King. He'd named himself after Eltelm when this game began and now he had a skill which was linked directly to him. This made him feel resentful to no end since it meant that Kayaba had been spying on him enough to hear him tell Eltelm's story to some of his friends or, or her. The megalomaniac had probably found it amusing to give him something so special, and so personal. He wondered if Heathcliff's 'Divine Blade' had some sort of significant meaning for him as well.

But Eltelm was no longer resentful; the skill was useful, and that was all. It made him stronger, and strength was everything now. He needed to be strong in order to win, and winning was all there was. It was the last thing she'd asked him to do, so he'd do it or die trying. As walked silently through the echoing blue walled dungeon, Eltelm idly wondered if perhaps he'd prefer the later. It wasn't like it mattered much anyway; he already felt dead.

He shut down his train of thought. Loose thoughts wasted energy. Eltelm made sure to use all he had as efficiently as possible. He'd cut out every unnecessary activity from his day. No eating, no drinking and for most days no sleeping. His body in this world did not require sleep, so he reduced how much he took. He wouldn't have slept at all, except for the fact that his mind still needed it. His compromise was to sleep for 12 hours every 72. This maximised the time he could spend in the fields, but still gave him enough time to function properly, so long as he didn't think too much about unimportant things.

As he exited the dungeon he blinked several times, briefly blinded by the brightness of the rising artificial sun. The light source sent rays of gold over the desolate rocky blue terrain of Floor 53. Each beam was staggered at first by the rock faces, and then finally shattered completely into a variety of strange shapes. Eltelm waited a moment for his eyes to adjust, and then continued on.

He strode silently through the cracked flatlands, cutting down any of the large crocodile-like monsters that were pulled by his presence. He took the most direct route back to the town. This meant crossing mob infested zones, but it didn't matter too much for him, since he was well ahead of the Level Margin for these mobs.

Closer to the town there were scatterings of early morning risers, taking this opportunity to grind when fewer people were about. As Eltelm drew closer some of them looked at him in surprise. They could see he'd come from the direction of the primary dungeons, but it was still far too early for someone to have been there and come back. Of course, Eltelm had been fighting during the night which had guaranteed his privacy. Once people started to recognise him however, their curious looks became satisfied. A few players new to the floor still watched him in confusion however.

"Who's he?" whispered a dark haired man in his mid twenties to another guy in his late teens. He probably expected Eltelm not be able to hear, but Eltelm's listening skill was much higher than his stealth skill.

"That's the crazy soloer," hissed back the other.

"You mean the one people are starting the call 'The Lonely Blade'?" asked the first guy in surprise.

"Yeah that's right," replied the other uneasily, "and shush up, he can probably hear you from there."

"What, no way," scoffed the dark haired man.

"Yes I can," called Eltelm simply, over his shoulder as he trudged past. The only response he received was a stunned silence. It was strange how a person sufficiently high above the Level curve could more or less become super human in this game. If Eltelm went about ten floors down it would take about an hour for the strongest players to deplete his HP bar. Any lower and it would be impossible altogether. Up here there were still plenty of players who could rival him among the clears, but more ordinary players like these were still a good five to eight levels below him.

Once Eltelm got close to the town he took a hard right and avoided going in. Staying in an inn was a waste of potentially valuable Col that Eltelm wasn't about to endorse. Besides, there were people who knew him in the town, and they'd try to talk to him again and-

No. He wasn't going to think about that. He wouldn't think about them, or about her, or about anyone besides himself. They were liabilities, to themselves as much as to him. If they died he would feel remorse, and he could not afford that right now. They were not a part of him anymore, no one was. After this was all over he could fix things, but not with any of them. They would remind him too much of this place. He'd go back home and be with his family and then everything would be...

He tightened his fists. He'd already made that promise; he wasn't about to waste time making it again. Hidden behind several crates at the back of a building, Eltelm pulled his cloak tightly around himself. He swiped the air to open his menu, and checked to see if he'd met his 72-hour quota. He had, plus a bit extra thanks to that unexpected kill quest he'd found. Eltelm set the game to have him sleep for 12 hours, and closed his eyes.

Eltelm was sitting in the centre of a well worn sky blue rug. It was a very familiar one, it even had the slightly more faded patch where he'd accidently stained it as a child. He looked over his shoulder to see a grey sofa and behind that a bookcase which only had books on the shelves at levels above the height of the sofa. The books seemed blurry and unfocused, but this failed to clue Eltelm in on the fact that he was dreaming. Not even his SAO clothes which he was still wearing told him that. His sleep logged brain simply took it in its stride as all a normal part of the setting.

In front of him was a television with several movie and game cases stacked next to it. His little brother was heavily into consol gaming, even though Eltelm stuck with his PC most of the time. Eltelm smiled as he remembered how his brother used to complain that they didn't have even one of the basic VR systems like a Rift 11 which only provided sight and sound. He had been so excited to use the Neve Gear when Eltelm brought it back with him. But, that wouldn't be happening any time soon now.

"Hey," said a voice behind him. Eltelm turned his head to see Toji sitting on the sofa, hands clasped in her lap.

"Hi," replied Eltelm cheerfully, not putting two and two together to make four, but rather zero.

"It's a nice place," she said, looking around the living room.

"It's not all that much," admitted Eltelm. "We're not exactly a wealthy family so we can't afford a large house. But its home."

Toji gave sad smile. "Shame I'll never get to see it," she said. Then she gave a shriek and burst into blue flames before turning into a wisp of ash that disintegrated into nothing. Eltelm jumped to his feet his hand instinctively flying to his sword, but there was nothing there. He looked down to see that he was dressed in a long white robe that was splattered all over with red.

He gagged as he realised it was blood. Then he looked up and could see Toji again. Two huge gashes had been carved horizontally across her side and her arms and legs were splayed all wrong as if they'd been broken dozens of times. Blood poured from her wounds, trickling down her until it formed into a stream that ran across the ground until it reached Eltelm's feet. From there it flowed up his robe, defying gravity and staining his clothes dark red.

"Why did you let me die?" asked Toji, her voice filled with hatred and bitterness. "I thought you said I mattered to you!" she hissed. "Didn't you tell me that time with Loki that you'd protect me? What did you do to protect me in the end?! I'm dead now and it's all your fault!" Eltelm tried to say something but the horrible nightmare that had once been Toji cut him off. "You said I was important, you said that you loved me!"

Suddenly a light came on in Eltelm's mind. "No," he said firmly. "No I didn't. I never worked up the courage to say it, I just thought it. This is just a dream isn't it?"

"So what if it is?!" shrieked Toji. She lunged at him, her legs splintering as she grabbed at his collar. "You still let me die! Whether this is a dream or not doesn't change the fact that I'm dead and that you did nothing!"

"I know," said Eltelm, "and I'm sorry. But if I'm going to keep the promise I made, I don't have time for this." With that he shoved Toji's broken form away from him and drew his sword. By this point he was lucid dreaming and had proper control. The demonic version of the girl he'd cared about so much howled and leapt at him. With a single clean stroke he severed her head from her body before striking the decapitated corps down into the light brown carpet. He was back in his SAO clothes with his long black cloak. He watched impassively as blood soaked into the carpet and rug and ran towards his boots. With a grunt of disgust he kicked at the red liquid and sent it spraying in all directions.

Then, he used his control over the dream to erase the entire scene. At this point he could have done anything he wanted in the dream. Instead he decided to just stand alone in the darkness and wait for the system to fully sedate him again so that he could finish his twelve hour cycle. There was no point wasting valuable energy trying to live fantasies that would never be. Or rather, that would never be again.

Eltelm woke up to see the sun going down. He'd gone to sleep to it rising, and now he had awoken twelve hours later to it setting. The sun always rose at 06:00 AM and set at 06:00 PM twelve hours later. It kept the timetable simple and efficient which was as far as Eltelm was concerned all to the good. He'd always liked things to be orderly.

There was however another unexpected feature in his field of vision when he awoke. It was a boy of around twelve years old watching him curiously from some distance away. Eltelm looked at the boy with surprise, then with a blank expression. "Why were sleeping behind boxes outside of town?" he asked curiously.

"Because inns are a waste of money," replied Eltelm simply. He stood up and made to go.

"Isn't it really uncomfortable though?" asked the boy.

"I'm asleep and my body is virtual," Eltelm reminded him.

"But what if it rains?"

"Then I get wet."

"What if somebody tries to sleep duel you?"

"I have an alert system in place to wake me up automatically if someone gets within a certain distance of me," explained Eltelm. "Once I'm awake I'm not worried about any would-be PKers."

"But you'd be fighting them alone," pointed out the boy.

"I'm high level I can deal with it," said Eltelm, a hint of impatience creeping into his voice. "Anyway, why are you wandering around on your own so late?" he retorted.

"I'm high level as well!" retorted the boy. "Just because I'm young doesn't mean I'm not good at this. Besides, I'm older than I look you know." That would be true, since in-game avatars didn't age and SAO had started well over a year ago now.

"And why would assume I wasn't dangerous?" asked Eltelm. "You can't see someone's player indicator when they're sleep; what if I'd been a red player hiding out on my own?"

"I'm scared of one player!" snorted the boy.

"Really? Well you should be," replied Eltelm coldly. "If I had wanted to hurt you you'd be long dead. I'm level 72 and I highly doubt you'd be able to match me." The boy looked rather shaken by that and took a step back. "Relax," said Eltelm, "As I said if I wanted to hurt you I'd have already done it. Now, run along so I can go about my business."

"Wait a minute," said the boy, who seemed to be doing a series of mental gymnastic events. "Incredibly high level? Two handed-sword? Hanging out alone? Oh my god!" he gasped. "You're that guy everyone's talking about! The nut job frontliner who went awol!"

"Gee, thanks," muttered Eltelm.

"So are you actually that Lonely Blade guy?" asked the boy.

"That depends," replied Eltelm, "Why does it matter?"

The boy opened his mouth to reply straight away, then seemed to realise he didn't know what to say. He paused for a moment to think about it and eventually gave up with a shrug. "My names Ray," he said, changing the subject, "What's yours?"

"Eltelm," said Eltelm wearily. "Now will you please stop bugging me?"

Ray gave a sort of humph! at that and looked indignant. Then someone called out, "Ray! Hey Ray you back here somewhere?" It was in English so Eltelm could only understand a little of it.

"Over here bro!" called out Ray in the same language. "Come see who I found!"

Eltelm groaned at the prospect of having to put up with more people. A dark skinned guy whose avatar was around sixteen with short cut black hair rounded the corner. When he saw Eltelm his hand went to his sword, but the weapon stayed in its sheath. "Guess who this is," said Ray proudly in English to his brother.

The newcomer looked Eltelm up and down for several moments. "Huh, well I never expected this," he said. "You wouldn't happen to be named Eltelm would you?" he asked Eltelm in Japanese.

"Yes, why?" asked Eltelm cautiously.

"It's just that you fit the description of someone a friend of mine described," explained the other. "As it happens she was rather upset at the time; it sounds like you screwed something up with her and her friends," he said, his voice not aggressive, but clearly not pleased either.

"I suppose you could say that," said Eltelm.

"My name's Nova," said the dark guy, taking his hand away from his sword hilt. "My friend's name is Arwen. Sound familiar?"

"Yeah," admitted Eltelm. "In fact I think I've heard your name a few times before now as well."

"As it happens," began Nova tacitly, "I happen to know that Arwen is staying in this town right now along with the rest of her guild. You want to come make up or whatever?"

Eltelm snorted. "No," he said with a bitter laugh, "I won't be speaking to her or to the rest of them for a very long time. Perhaps forever."

"Why not?" asked Nova curiously.

"Emotional attachments like them are a liability," explained Eltelm.

Nova raised an eyebrow, "what are you a robot or something?" he asked with a forced laugh.

"That would make things an awful lot easier, but no," replied Eltelm. "I'll admit that it would be nice to be able to as you put it 'make up'. Trouble is reality is not kind enough to me to allow for such things. My ties to the Starlit Thegns are cut and I intend to keep that way."

Nova shrugged. "Suit yourself," he said. He paused for a moment and then, "it's not really my business but, this problem you have wouldn't happen to have anything to do with Toji's death would it?"


	18. Chapter 14

Chapter 14: A Slight Detour

Floor: 54 Level: 74

The cold night air blasted down the sheer face of dark rock, scattering snow into the air in large clouds. The swarms of white flecks whirled through the air like so many insects. The unnatural snow refused to settle on the ragged grey fur, which held steady, being unaffected by the wind. The game's physics systems were not quite that advanced. Pale steam was huffed from the beast's jaws, shrouding the eyes as blue as the ice which clung to the ends of the mob's coat.

The Dire Wolf snarled, digging its paws into the inch deep snow. Just before it sprang forwards Eltelm threw himself to the left. The monster swept by him, a long red line forming along its flank. It landed with an awkward skid, attempting to regain its footing before attacking again. It never got the chance to steady itself before he was on top of it. With a quick multi-hit sword skill four more red lines had been carved onto the wolf's side.

The beast's paws stopped skidding and it turned, snarling. It was easy by this point to simply ram his blade into its face in a powered stab. The sword point disappeared, sending a shower of red and white pixels into the air as it went. With a whoosh of black velvet and a flash of steel in the dark atmosphere Eltelm stepped back, letting his sword deliver maximum damage. A shudder passed through the wolf's body, like a ripple across a pond. Then it was gone, vaporised into blue shards.

Eltelm peered around him, his pale blue eyes straining to pierce through the thick darkness. He wished he'd put more levels into his keen eye skill. Despite this, he was fairly confident there were no other mobs in the immediate area.

The swirling winds delivered him a backhand of snow straight into his face. Blinking Eltelm gestured for the game menu to open. Whipping snow away from his face with a gloved hand, he peered at the list of items gathered so far, and then at the clock in the top left hand corner. He was startled to read the time as 7:30 PM; a full hour and a half after his usual knock-off time. He must have lost track of the time up here. That was hardly surprising; the mountain he'd scaled was shrouded in dark clouds at all times, making it seem as if the place were in constant night.

With a sigh Eltelm sheathed his blade and started to work his way back to the track which lead down the mountain. It had been a challenge finding it again the first time he had come up here, but after a few trips he'd begun to develop a sense of where everything was in relation to each other. Knowing that it was possible for mobs to spawn on the path down, the boy kept his right hand on the pommel of his sword the entire time. The patterned metal orb felt comfortable in his hand. A familiar presence, that remained constant. It was one of the few comforts he had which didn't require him to waste energy.

Three dead wolves and an ice elemental later, and the ground had levelled out mostly. A handful of words in Japanese appeared briefly on his screen to inform him of his new location. Not that Eltelm had any idea what they said; she'd never gotten around to teaching him much written stuff. The thought began to stir at a few memories, but he quickly shook his head and pushed them down. _Time for that later,_ he told himself. That's what he'd been telling himself for over a month now.

"H-hey wait!" called out a voice somewhere off to the right. Eltelm stopped and turned on his heel, hand still ready to draw. A female player of about fifteen years of age with long blonde hair and pale skin was hurrying towards him from the direction of the mountain. She had a single massive sword strapped to her back and appeared to be dressed in medium high grade steel. The sword would have made Eltelm grimace if he'd been paying close attention to it, being covered in innumerable spikes up and down the length of the blade, as well as rather nonsensical guard which-in real life-would be likely to stab the user. Still, from Eltelm could recall it was a pretty high damage dealer, at least for four floors below this.

The girl came to a stop in front of him, and Eltelm tilted his head slightly to the side in a questioning way. "I need help," she explained, speaking Japanese with a strong Russian accent. "Level?" she asked, nodding to Eltelm.

"I'm Level 74," replied Eltelm in Russian, grinning slightly at the surprised look on the girl's face, both from his statement, and the language he'd delivered it in. Of course, she had no way of seeing the smirk, since he had a scarf covering the lower half of his face. She'd always insisted that he wear a scarf, even though he'd told her his cloak was enough to keep out the cold.

The girl quickly recovered herself. "My name's Athena," she explained, switching over to her native tongue, "I was showing a friend of mine around the front lines. We decided to go a little way up the mountain and farm a few of the weaker mobs but, part of the ground gave way and he's fallen into the dungeon."

Eltelm's eyes widened. The dungeon on this floor was still largely unexplored, with only a few of the leaders having penetrated any real distance. "What level is your friend?" he demanded sharply.

"He's only level 58," she said, her face leaking a hint of the emotion inside of her. "It only happened a few minutes ago," she continued. "Please, he'll die down there unless someone can get him out."

Eltelm hung his head and sighed bitterly. He was tired, and this kind of a detour would waste precious energy, as well as quite possibly put his life in danger. Still, a human life was a human life right? He looked up and faced Athena directly. "Tell me exactly where he is, then run back to the town and get together some of the clearers to come find us," he told her. "I'll do my best to get to your friend and keep him safe."

She shook her head vigorously, "I'm coming with you," she said firmly, "I can't just leave him up there."

"You don't understand," snapped Eltelm, volume spiking, "I doubt I can get your friend out of there. I need you to go and get help, substantial help. Otherwise I wouldn't bet on my chances of success."

Athena bit her lip, but after spending several moments staring at the ground, she looked up and nodded. Hastily she gave him the most detailed directions she could manage. Eltelm nodded slowly, and seeing him satisfied she turned to go. Quickly Eltelm reached out and caught her arm, "one more thing," he added hastily. "What's your friend's name?"

"Red," she replied, before taking off at top speed for the town.

Turning back to the mountain, Eltelm set off at a run, mapping out the route as best as he could in his head. He drew a path through an imaginary map as he went, thought several times he found his map wasn't spot on and he had to take an alternate route.

A pair of rocks struck out into the air, the mountain's dark stony fangs. They enclosed a crack in the ground. It was a two metre wide split with sharp edges, as if the falling ground had been a puzzle piece, now removed. That implied it was a deliberate feature of the game; everyone would have to be much more careful around here from now on if that was the case.

Eltelm stepped up to the break which seemed to be filled with an inky darkness. Cautiously he dropped into a crouch and moved forwards. Fall damage was a very real danger here, depending on how long a drop it was down to the dungeon floor. Peering over the edge he could see a faintly illuminated patch of stone paved ground, covered by a patch of snow that had fallen down when the ceiling collapsed. He tried to spot the friend Athena had talked about, but Eltelm couldn't spot him anywhere directly near to the circle of light.

With an inward sigh, he estimated the distance, and dropped. He tucked himself into a ball and rolled at the last second. The game engine executed the greater part of the motion for him, ensuring a smooth landing. The usual heat that came with taking fall damage was spared him, and Eltelm got to his feet. "Hello?" he called in Russian. He bit his lip at the silence which came in reply. "Hello?" he called again, this time in Japanese, "I'm here to help you! Answer so I can find you!"

After a few seconds more of worrisome silence, Eltelm pricked his ears as a voice fluttered unsteadily into the room. He seized on it and focused, using his enhanced senses to magnify it. It was impossible to clearly make out the words from here, but any voice was good enough. His sword came out of its sheath with the usual unrealistic grating noise, as Eltelm moved off towards the voice.

It was only after he'd walked for a full minute that he realised why the person in question had been so reluctant to reply at first: some monsters were drawn to sound. Cursing his forgetfulness Eltelm raised his voice again, calling out to the fallen player as he went. It was better any monster be drawn to him than to them.

Sure enough, a skeleton shambled around one corner, rotting leather armour clinging to its fleshless frame. The spiked club that hung loosely in its right hand was complimented by the spike edged shield rammed onto its lower left arm. The enemy creaked as it drew back its weapon to swing, moving its entire body weight into the slow attack. Eltelm easily side stepped it and slashed across the thing's ribs. He gritted his teeth at the meagre reaction from the monster's health bar.

Thankfully the skeleton's attacks all proved to be easy to dodge, even when it was joined by an identical companion. After a few minutes of steady hacking, both skeletons had been dropped to very low health. Drawing back his blade, Eltelm let the white energy leap across the weapon before releasing it in a wide arch. The blast struck both targets, slicing through the remnants of their health bars. The two monsters let out a sound akin to the giving out of an old car before falling into a heap, one on top of the other.

A pun about them being bone tired flitted through Eltelm's mind for a second, but he dismissed it as a waste of time.

Eltelm resumed his calling and walking at the same time, checking for a reply every few minutes or so to ensure he was still going the right way.

When Eltelm eventually came to the source location, he was pleased to find that this 'Red' character had had the common sense to hide in a tight corner. Flanked by a stone pillar and an ice flow, the black shrouded figure was pulled back as far as his surroundings would allow. When he saw Eltelm enter the room looking around with a drawn sword, he edged cautiously out from his hiding place. "Are you Red?" asked Eltelm, deciding to use Japanese first.

Since their face was covered by a grate fronted helm, Eltelm couldn't actually see the expression that implied their lack of total understanding, but he read it in their delayed response time. "I think yes," he said, voice implying a weak Russian accent.

"You speak Russian?" asked Eltelm.

"Yeah, pretty well," nodded Red, the frosty light glinting off his armour. It was a rather special looking set Eltelm had never seen before. Built around a black cloak, the individual parts were curved off into menacing blades. Much of the actual metal seemed to be hidden within the black folds, and the dark eyed visage created by the helm had a decidedly intense effect. Under normal circumstances Eltelm would have thought it cool, if a little impractical in certain aspects.

"Your friend Athena told me to come look for you," explained Eltelm briskly, "Apparently you're a little out your depth up here right?"

Red nodded a little reluctantly, "yeah, I punched a bit above my weight limit. But ah, are you sure you can y'know, get us out again?" He was eyeing Eltelm's lesser stature somewhat sceptically. Eltelm couldn't say he blamed him. SAO felt so real at times that people forgot it was actually a game, and that some who appeared to be just fourteen was not only older, but could still fight just as effectively as any adult.

"I'm level 74," replied Eltelm, walking past him towards a doorway that seemed a likely exit route, "if that's not high enough for you I can come back later when I've got more EXP."

"Oh, wow, that's, that's pretty dam high man," admitted Red, hurrying after Eltelm. "Sorry, I just forget sometimes how things are here."

"Don't worry about it," said Eltelm dismissively. "Now, we're going to need to stay quiet to try and reduce our number of encounters." Beside him Red signalled his understanding with a nod. The shadowed areas on his mini-map signalled Eltelm's lack of experience in this area as he brought it up to check their position. They weren't too far from places he'd explored; maybe ten minutes walk? Putting his finger to his lips to signal for quiet again, Eltelm started off, eyes darting between the various alcoves that all had the potential to conceal an enemy.

With a low level tagging along, Eltelm was now conscious of his every footfall. Any and every noise seemed to be caught up by the game engine and echoed several dozen times off the walls. He knew in his head that these noises would only draw enemies that were already close to begin with, but that failed to deplete his unease. His companion would be terrifyingly vulnerable in a fight at this level, especially considering the fact that the level curve had started to become exponential lately.

Red ironically seemed far less worried about the small sounds, though that did not free him totally of apprehension. He would glance left and right as they went, even if he wasn't frighted by every other shadow like Eltelm. As they went on without encounter, Eltelm's confidence increased, and with it his pace. In fact, when he almost ran into the ice troll's broad back, he was walking at was nearly an ordinary one.

Both players scampered back as the ten foot tall beast turned, eyeing them with a dull gaze. Red hissed a swear word under his breath as he realised just how big this particular monster was. It was nearly impossible to see the passageway beyond its vast folds of frozen blue fat as it stumbled forwards. Eltelm swallowed hard as the mob approached them, moving back into a somewhat larger space they'd just come from. "Don't let looks trick you," he advised, "it's actually very fast when it attacks."

Red nodded. Eltelm did a double take as he noticed just what weapon he was using. A pair of two pronged claws extended from his gauntlets, like an armoured Wolverine. Not many people used claw weapons due to their rarity, and the limited protection they afforded. Eltelm just hoped Red hadn't gone for them because they looked cool.

The troll considered to two humans before it, as it emerged into a low roofed room, the walls of which were made entirely out of ice. Only four stone pillars-embedded in the faintly clear blue substance-implied any form of man-made structure to the chamber besides the floor. With a grunt of affirmation the troll focused its eyes on Red, taking the standard tactic of targeting the player with the least HP first.

Not wanting the mob to get the chance to lash out at his charge Eltelm ran forwards, blade sending white sparks into the air around him. As the troll drew back rapidly for a swing, Eltelm performed a knock back strike on the creature, cancelling the attack and sending it staggering backwards. As soon as the animation ended Eltelm stepped into a pair of draw cuts across the mob's bloated belly, leaving two pale red lines.

Grunting angrily the troll switched its argo to Eltelm, forcing him to hit the deck and dodge a swing at his head. Rolling to the side, Eltelm charged up a three-hit strike that carved across the troll's legs. It growled at the steady stream of damage that was stubbornly lowering its health bar. Eltelm scrambled to his feet in time to leap backwards and avoid being crushed by the hug slab of rock that was the troll's main weapon.

Eltelm looked up to see the mob taking the few slow steps towards needed to close the gap he'd made. Eltelm wanted to hiss in frustration as Red dashed towards the enemy, claw blades glowing red. He leapt into the air just in front of the troll, seeming to float in place with knees pulled up for several seconds. The wrist mounted blades cut a double 'X' in the space in front of the mob's head before Red back flipped, seemingly off thin air to land in the middle of the room.

The troll turned to face him, the red mark still floating next its head. After a second it began to spin rapidly before exploding with a sound effect akin to ripping flesh. It seemed to have some kind of blast effect as it forced the troll to stagger several steps. Seeing it coming Eltelm span his blade in his hands and smashed it back the opposite way. The thing's great bulk hit the wall with a thunderous crash, giving off a cloud of dust and ice shards.

Red's damage wasn't too bad for a low level, Eltelm reflected as he charged forwards, sword flashing. The two were able to play an effective game of bait and switch with the troll after that. Eltelm would fight it close up for a short while and deal most of the damage. Once he needed to gain some space he would scramble backwards and let Red could perform another one of his jump off attacks to draw agro. They weren't high damage compared to the monster's health, but they didn't need to be.

After two minutes of persistent fighting the troll exploded into shards. Eltelm blinked in surprise at the 'Congratulations!' sign that appeared in the air, denouncing their opponent as a mini-boss. Then again, it had been rather tough for a normal ice troll he supposed. "That was cool," said Red, his obvious grin hidden behind his helmet, "I can't believe we just killed a mini-boss!"

"Don't, (brief pause), celebrate yet," reprimanded Eltelm, spending a few seconds to find the correct word in Russian, "We still have a ways to go before we reach the outside."

"Yeah but come on man," persisted Red, "You have to admit we did pretty good."

Eltelm shrugged before leading the way down the no longer blocked passageway.

A few minutes later they were both relieved by the sight of a group of ten or so players, including three tanks. Eltelm's smile of relief vanished as he recognised Ironhand, Ajia and Sarah amongst them. He supposed he should have expected some of them to turn up, but he would have preferred otherwise. Pulling his hood down a little further he stood back, allowing Red to go first.

To his annoyance Ajia came over to him straight away. When Eltelm said nothing to her she frowned, "Look, no one's angry with you," she said, "they all just want you to come back."

"I'm fine as I am," retorted Eltelm. "In fact I'm better off," he added in German.

"What was that?" demanded Ajia with a frown. When Eltelm wouldn't reply to that she shrugged. "Eh, to be honest I don't really care myself, so long as you don't get killed or anything," she said, turning on her heel. "But, the others miss you," she added meaningfully, glancing over her metal plated shoulder at him.

"That's too bad," replied Eltelm before striding away.

"Oh hey," said Red, catching Eltelm's arm as he went, "I nearly forgot to say thanks: without you I'd have been all kinds of f'ed up back there. Thanks man."

"You're welcome," said Eltelm curtly. "I'd suggest you be more careful when outside of you normal hunting grounds. You've got some potential so don't waste it. You'd be pretty useful on the Assault Team some day." Leaving Red with an astonished expression under his helmet, Eltelm made his way down the blue soaked passageways, heading for the surface and some well earned sleep.


	19. Chapter 15

Chapter 15: The Fire Drake

Max Floor: 54 Level: 74

Most of floor 54 was covered in snow, and there was a perpetual mass of it being deposited on the mountain-the floor's major landmark where most of the stronger mobs could be found. There was however, an area on the fringes of the floor where there was none. It was tucked away behind a wall of ice over twenty metres high, pushed to the side of the floor as if it were an afterthought in its design.

The ground there was bare black rock. It jutted up in shards as if it were teeth or claws, the edges of ever boulder seeming to be as sharp as any sword. The few players who had ventured there were struck instantly by the change in temperature. In contrast to the outside world that remained perpetually cold, this snowless side region got warmer and warmer the further in you went, until the heat started to make it uncomfortable to hang around too long.

On its own the spot would have just been a minor curiosity for most players.

It had been found when a party from the Knights followed a quest line to the small opening in the ice wall that blocked the region from view. The NPC that gave the quest had instructed the group to retrieve a golden ring for them; a relatively simple fetch quest. The NPC had also given them a warning though: that part of the floor was inhabited by Darash the Fire Drake, a terrible monster that had retreated there to escape from the cold.

This had excited the players who had expected to have to fight this Darash whilst retrieving the ring. This proved be unnecessary, as the ring was only a little ways into the area. They did however find deep claw marks in several of the stones, and at more than one point they had heard a roar echo through the rocky labyrinth. Since the various shards of stone were all over ten metres tall, the snowless zone was carved up into numerous pathways, all of which seemed to be leading deeper and deeper, towards the centre.

A few other players had scouted further, but only one had actually reached what they assumed to be Darash's lair. He described it as a massive cave mouth with bones littered around the entrance. The rocks had been scorched dark with soot and smoke drifted out of the dark maw in passive-aggressive spirals.

So far, no one had attempted to confront Darash. The resources needed to mount a mid-floor boss raid took time to pull together, and so far none of the guilds had gotten around to making a proper plan for taking on the dragon.

To Eltelm, another big contrast between this region and the outside was that the air here was very still. Beyond the sky blue barrier of frozen water behind him, the air was so often filled with howling winds. In here, the air hardly moved. It had an almost suffocating effect, as if the atmosphere had become too thin to breathe.

Not letting himself dwell on the strangeness of the new environment, Eltelm pushed his cloak back so that it no longer covered his shoulders, and started forwards. He'd come here once before to get a measure of the mobs in the area, so he had somewhat braced himself for the sudden change in conditions. At this point Aincrad had shown most players every climate imaginable anyway; a pseudo volcanic region was nothing new in and of itself.

As the shrouded swordsman hacked his way through various skeletal and reptilian monsters he felt the need to remind himself as to why he was doing this. If he could take a mid-floor boss on his own, he would receive a massive boost in EXP that would push him right to the top of the pack. It would also give him exclusive access to numerous special drops. It wasn't as if it was unheard of for a player to solo a mid-floor boss; it had been done at least half a dozen times successfully over the past year.

As he parried a clumsy thrust from a crimson skinned lizard man, Eltelm told himself that this would be easy. He was in the top fifty players; he could manage this just fine on his own. Angered by his own self doubt Eltelm lashed out with his glowing white blade, eviscerating the poor monster over the course of several seconds. It burst into digital shards and Eltelm irritably strode through it.

 _I beat Apollyon alone,_ he reasoned, _this is no different._

And yet, as he rounded what he knew was the second last corner and turned into a long ravine, his stomach kept tying itself in knots. He told himself that he was just nervous about fighting the boss, but that feeling had been sticking with him for weeks now. The more he tried to push it down the worst it seemed to get. _All I have to do is get into this fight,_ he told himself. _As soon as you go into combat mode, you'll be fine._

It was true. He knew it was true because it was what always happened. When Eltelm faced an enemy strong enough to demand his full concentration, he felt freed of his discomfort. He would fight this boss and feel better for it. Then when he won, he'd have boosted himself up into the top twenty, perhaps even into the top ten. After that it would all be easy. That was the plan, and it would not fail him; it wasn't allowed to fail him.

The echo of light shoes sounding on rock behind him caused Eltelm to stop walking. His right hand went to his sword and he waited, motionless.

"Eltelm!"

He knew that voice. It was one he hadn't heard addressed to him in some time. Eltelm spun on his heel and stood with his feet shoulder width apart. His hand did not leave the hilt. "What are you doing here?" he asked, head tilted slightly to the side.

"Looking for you," came the reply.

Eltelm felt a dangerous grin twitch at the corners of his mouth. He didn't buy that. "Are you sure you're not here for the same reason I am?" he asked.

"Yeah, I'm sure," came the reply, somewhat aggressive after Eltelm's reply. "Unlike certain people I have no intention of throwing myself against a monster that's going to tear me apart."

This time Eltelm did grin; a small sardonic smile that left his face looking rather unpleasant. "That's rich coming from you after Christmas," he shot back. "I guess you could say I'm just following your example."

Kirito bit his lip at that. He couldn't deny the accusation. "I was being an idiot then," he said, dark gaze locked with Eltelm's steely ice blue. "I barely made it out of that fight with my life, and I'd been power levelling for it for months before hand."

Eltelm's grin became a scowl. "So you don't think I can measure up to your performance then, is that it?" he spat back.

"I'm saying that you're punching above your weight limit and that you're going to get yourself killed," replied Kirito, striving to keep his voice even. "I don't believe any player could solo Darash at this point; we aren't even half way through this floor yet!"

"What, so you want to team up for it or something?" asked Eltelm, a hint of curiosity creeping into his voice.

"No!" spluttered Kirito, exasperation finally creeping into his voice, "I want you to stop this and go back so you don't get yourself killed!"

For a few second's the blonde swordsman's expression became unreadable. Then a somewhat pained expression seemed to violently etch its way across his face. "Why do you care so much all of a sudden what happens to me?" he asked. "We barely even know each other. How did you even know I was here?"

Kirito was a little taken aback. Not by the words themselves (they made enough sense he supposed) but rather the way in which they were delivered. He hadn't spoken to Eltelm since Floor 50, figuring that he would want to have some time alone. During that time Eltelm remained calm and collected at all times, far more so than Kirito had known him to be beforehand. He could sympathise with that a little he supposed, but Eltelm's expression right now; it was anything but collected. He looked as if he wanted to scream in pain, shout in rage and burst into tears all at the same time.

"For starters you're another human being," Kirito said, voice going a little softer than he intended it too, "life is valuable no matter whose it is. Second of all I feel like I owe you: if it weren't for you I would have spent last Christmas and probably weeks of time following it in self pity and misery. Who knows, I might have done something really stupid. And third you're a gifted fighter: losing you would be a blow to the front lines.

"I won't lie to you and say that I came after you on my own initiative. I was asked to by Lee because he didn't feel that he'd be able to stop you from doing this. I agreed to try because of those reasons and several others. We might not know each other all that well, but I know you well enough to not want to see you throw your life away. Now, come back to the town with me."

Kirito took a step forwards.

"No," came the reply, hissed from underneath the black velvet hood. "If you want me to come back with you Kirito; then you'll have to make me." There was the quiet grind of metal on metal as Eltelm slip his weapon from its sheathe.

Kirito's eyes widened, then narrowed. "All right," he said, hand already moving towards the hilt over his shoulder. "I was always better with swords than words anyway."

The two boys watched each other intently from about a stone's throw away. Eltelm moved his right foot back behind him, turning it ninety degrees to his left and giving a slight bend to his knees. Kirito took up a stance that was almost a mirror of this, except that while Eltelm held his blade directly in front of him with two hands, Kirito held his away to the side with only one hand.

That stance had always annoyed Eltelm just a little bit. It just felt arrogant to leave your front so wide open at the start of a fight. It was like a taunt to your opponent, saying that you didn't even need to guard against their attacks they were so poor. Eltelm was pretty sure that wasn't the reason for Kirito's stance (it reminded of the way you might hold a thrusting sword when dual wielding), but it got under his skin none-the-less.

Any player from the lower floors would have expected to two to charge head on at each other, bright aqua and white lights blazing, as would befit two high level players. But both of these combatants knew swordplay from the real world, and weren't about to openly telegraph their attacks to an opponent who knew what they were doing. Instead they edged towards each other slowly, each studying the other's posture intently for any sign of how they would make the first strike.

Once they were within arm's reach of each other Eltelm made a move as if to quickly strike at Kirito's head. As Kirito moved to parry the stroke he switched targets and aimed for his left arm. Without missing a beat the black swordsman turned neatly to his left, allowing the strike to pass through empty air.

His immediate response was to counter attack with a thrust towards Eltelm's neck, but Eltelm had made sure that his strike hand bounced his sword neatly back into its former place, using his left hand on the pommel as leverage to return to sword to guard. He side stepped and parried the stab away into the air.

He cursed himself silently for not following this up with a strike of his own at Kirito's now unprotected chest, as he drew back into a more defensive stance. He moved slightly as if to get around Kirito's open side (his left where he had no weapon), but his opponent moved in sync with him to keep his blade covering his front.

The next two minutes were a game of cat and mouse, as both tried to get the upper hand on the other by opening up their body to a strike, but every time one of them succeeded, the other simply dodged the blow and countered.

Eltelm reflected bitterly that his usual techniques of deflecting his opponent's weapon to expose their body would not work on this occasion. In fact, he was actually opening himself up to a similar form of attack from Kirito by trying to rely of fancy footwork and precise strike placement.

Gaze intent he moved as if was going to once again try and come around Kirito's left side. As Kirito reacted however he pulled back pushed himself forwards. His sword blazed into white fire and he hurled off three rapid consecutive blows. Sword Skill strikes could not be parried without using another Sword Skill, so all Kirito could do was block head on-or in the case of the third strike jump out of the way.

With what ironically seemed to have been the courteous phase of the fight over, Kirito responded with four strike combo: four horizontal cuts at high speed, each one at a different height. Eltelm knew this ability, and ducked the first swing before blocking the next two and jumping over the last.

Eltelm threw himself forwards again, this time executing a rapid spin attack which was supposed to smash the pommel of your sword into your opponent's face, stunning them for a few brief seconds. Kirito leapt back and evaded the attack before attempting a power stab into Eltelm's gut, which he was only able to jump to the side and dodge at the very last second.

He grabbed Kirito's outstretched arm and yanked him roughly forward. He flipped his sword around and charged up skull breaker with the intent of bringing it down on Kirito's back. But the other player was too good at making split decisions to be caught by such an attack. Kirito used his own momentum to launch off a powerful horizontal strike which smashed head on against Eltelm's murder stroke.

Brightly coloured sparks flew as Eltelm staggered backwards and Kirito skidded over the rough stone ground. The two stood panting for a few moments, before Kirito charged in with a roar.

The next phase of the fight was much like the first, except that this time it was much faster, and with brilliant flashes of white, blue, green and gold. It was also accompanied by the occasional war-cry.

Finally, Eltelm had lost patience. A small part of his mind still knew that either of the two could end up killing each other if they went too far (though at the moment no damage had been dealt) but the rest of it was merely filled with the fight, and the desire for victory. At this point nothing else existed other than losing or winning.

In a silence of brutal intensity, Eltelm unleashed Shala Efiron. His sword sliced through the air and seemed to set it on fire as it did so. Kirito blocked the first strike, but was thrown backwards as it was followed by an explosion. He rolled to the side to dodge the next, tried to block the third, but was thrown into the air a second time. Before he could regain any kind balance Eltelm was on him again.

Kirito threw himself around frantically as the fiery blade swished past him, often missing by little more than a centimetre. Finally, the eighth strike connected, drawing a red line across the dark haired player's chest. The line then exploded and sent Kirito flying back into one of the sheer stone walls on either side of them. He grunted painfully as pushed himself back to his feet.

Eltelm was panting, but not pressing the attack. Instead he was looking at his sword with a blank look on his face. How much damage had he just dealt, and could he afford to risk using the Sword Skill a second time. He was pretty sure he needed it if he wanted to win, but...

Then he remembered where he was and sprang backwards, taking up a defensive guard. But Kirito was on him. Instead he was closing a menu with his left hand, the Elucidator still clutched in his right. A faint flash over his left shoulder quickly faded to reveal a second sword hilt. Eltelm looked on in surprise as Kirito proceeded to draw the second blade from its place on his back. It was steel with a brass pattern set into the blade, twisting up it like dye dropped into running water.

Kirito took up his initial stance, the Elucidator held poised away to his right side. Only this time, his posture now made perfect sense. The second sword covered his front, held perpendicular to his body. Kirito's opening stance really was for two blades, it was just that up until now Eltelm had only ever seen him using one.

But, duel wielding swords was meant to be impossible. Whenever anyone had tried it in the past the sword in their other hand had simply vanished back into their inventory. But both Kirito's swords were most certainly there. "You're not the only one with unique abilities you know," hissed Kirito through his ragged breathing.

They were both breathing very hard, having accumulated dozens of stacks of the weariness modifier during their bout.

Eltelm grimaced but did his best not to let how unnerved he was show on his face. Kirito leapt forwards, both sword blazing different colours; the left one green and the right one blue. Eltelm blocked one blade and managed to dodge the other, but before he could counter attack Kirito was on him again, this time attacking with a four hit combo. That was four hits, per blade. Eltelm blocked and dodged most but was struck by the third swing from the left, followed closely by the fourth from the right. He barely managed to roll aside in time to dodge the last blow of the combo.

Still fuelled by the adrenaline rush his real body was having at that moment, Eltelm activated his next sword skill whilst still on the ground and sprung forward off of his coil haunches. Kirito calmly parried with one blade, turned his body side on to Eltelm, and stabbed him neatly in the side with the other sword.

Eltelm was thrown on to the ground and rolled over quickly to block a downwards strike from Kirito's left sword. The dark haired boy lunged forwards, planting a knee on Eltelm's chest and ramming the guard of right sword into that of Eltelm's weapon. With a clean thrust upwards Kirito pushed Eltelm's sword away before holding down his right arm with his other foot. Before Eltelm could do anything, both of Kirito's blades were rested against his throat.

The immense dim of battle which had been filling the ears of both players up until this point began to die away, as the reality of Eltelm's loss began to sink in. "Yield?" demanded Kirito.

Eltelm wanted to say no, but that would have been stupid. He was disarmed and pinned with both of his opponent's weapons at his throat. "Yield," he replied in a reluctant mumble.

The two of them remained in the pose for several moments, before Kirito slowly got to his feet and let Eltelm get back up. He did not however let him have his sword back just yet. Kirito sheathed his two swords over his shoulders, and with a few button presses, the second one vanished. "Don't tell anyone about that okay?" he asked, "About the two swords thing I mean. I don't want anyone to know yet."

Eltelm said nothing. He was staring at the rock beneath him with desperate eyes, as if he wanted it to somehow escape him from his current situation. He'd lost. Even after using his trump card he had lost. And it was worse than that because that uncomfortable feeling in his stomach was back now, accompanied by a powerful ache in his chest. He felt worse than before the fight started in oh so many ways.

"Eltelm, are you all right?" His head snapped up at the question. It seemed a ridiculous one. The two of them had just been at each other's throats and could have killed each other, and now Kirito was asking him if he was all right? Eltelm didn't feel as if he could speak, so he just shook his head.

Kirito looked at his closely in order to bring up the public display. "You're HP looks a bit battered but you'll be fine, don't worry," he said, fishing around in his pouches for a healing potion.

"Not what I meant," replied Eltelm, huskily.

Kirito froze. "Do you, want to talk about it?" he asked slowly.

"Why would I talk about it?" asked Eltelm. "I, I don't even want to think about it. The more I do, the worse it gets. I need to just, push it away, keep it locked up, and I'll be fine."

Kirito shook his head. "You can't do that to your feelings forever," he said. "Sooner or later you have to confront them."

"No, no I don't," retorted Eltelm, defiance creeping into his voice. "I'm not like normal people: I don't think like you all do, and I don't let my emotions rule me. I don't need what you need, and I don't want what you want. If I hold this down, it will go. IT WILL GO!" He screamed the last part, as if, maybe, he gave the statement enough volume it would be true. It was true that he was strange compared most people, but he knew already, that he could never win the battle he had set himself.

"If you keep this up you will die," said Kirito bluntly. Eltelm nodded dumbly. He could accept that at least. "Just come back to town, talk with your friends and let them help you," he went on. "Take some time off and just, just let them help."

Eltelm clenched his hands into fists so tightly that he began to shake. "Give me my sword," he said, after what seemed to be an infinitely long silence. Kirito hesitated. "Give it to me," persisted Eltelm, "I'm not going to do anything stupid. I swear."

Cautiously Kirito held out the long sword, and Eltelm took it gingerly from his grasp. There was the familiar grinding noise as he slipped it back into its sheath. Pulling his hood back up over his, Eltelm turned, and began to walk towards the exit.

"Eltelm," said Kirito again, voice tinged with desperation, "Don't lose to this. Go home."

Eltelm stopped mid step and looked over his shoulder. "That's what I've been trying to do all this time," he said.


	20. Chapter 16

Chapter 16: The Black Bears

Max Floor: 54 Level: NA

"Come on then! If there's anyone here who can last two minutes against me without Sword Skills they get 1000 Col!" The booming voice belonged to a tall young man with dark hair that was let out down to his shoulders and with stubble covering his angular chin. The armour he was wearing gave the impression that his shoulders were broader than they were (and they weren't exactly skinny), and when combined with the long rather vicious looking pole axe he was leaning on, his appearance gave off a very intimidating air.

His eyes scanned over the small crowd of players before him eagerly. "Hey, Firemane," he shouted, pointing to a smaller teenage boy dressed in bronze scale armour, "You're pretty good with that axe of yours; think you can take me?"

The boy chuckled at that. "Probably not," he replied, "But hey, I'll give it a go." With a grin he elbowed his way through the small cluster of people and jumped nimbly up onto the podium the other was standing on.

"Excellent," he said as Firemane removed a long handled war axe from his inventory and span the hilt in his hands a few times. "Now, the rules are pretty simple: if you can last two full minutes against me you get 1000 Col. Otherwise, you have to pay me 500 Col. When you lose the money goes into the pool. Sound fair?"

"Just fine," said Firemane, "except for the part about me losing of course." The tall man just grinned at that and sent the duel request. The fight would be to the yellow zone. The two dozen watchers all crowded round expectantly. They all knew Firemane was good, but they'd also seen how easily Winter had won the last fight. Half a dozen of the crowd cheered loud words of encouragement for Firemane as the fight began. His guild-mates didn't much mind if he won or lost, but that wasn't really the point.

"Think he has much chance?" asked Able, not turning his head to address his companion, but instead focusing on the fight.

"Against Winter?" asked Red with a raised eyebrow, "Pfft! No way. Firemane's good but well..." He nodded in the direction of the close quarters scrap, where Firemane had already been pushed back to the edge of the impromptu ring, having taken a bad hit to his chest. As the pair watched Winter shoulder charged Firemane, who promptly jumped to the side, swinging his axe for a strike on Winter's back. But as he moved his weapon to make the swing Winter's own weapon was already smashed into his now exposed middle. Firemane went flying back in the other direction across the ring.

As he got to his feet with a mild groan of discomfort, a large sign was already announcing Winter as the winner of the duel. "...I think the evidence speaks for itself," finished Red. "I don't think even I'd fight Winter without Sword Skills."

"Still," mused Able, "A lot of people seem to be trying their luck huh?"

"It's like gambling man," sighed Red, shaking his head, "guys just love to bet against the odds."

"Speaking of guys," said Able, straightening up from the wall he had hitherto been leaning on, "why is that our exclusive membership tonight? Athena couldn't make it?"

"Nah, apparently there's some real serious crap going down on the front lines right now: they're getting ready to challenge the Floor Boss," explained Red. "She wants to try and grind up as much as she can so that she can try help out." The dark armoured player look at the earthen tiled ground a little distantly, "I hope she doesn't go getting herself into a mess she can't get out of."

"Athena'll be fine," said Able dismissively. "If you locked her in a room with two starving wolves, I'd be asking where I could get me some new wolves." Red laughed at that.

Athena was a bit of a badass he had to admit. She was the highest level person on his friends list, and the only member of the Black Bears who was actually on the front lines. Though technically she was more an honorary member of the Bears, since she didn't belong to any of its three guilds.

"Hey," pipped up Able, nudging him with a seal skin covered elbow, "looks like someone else is taking the challenge. Funny, I don't think I've ever seen him before." Red peered at the short figure who had now clambered onto the platform.

As they turned enough for Red to see their face he was surprised to see that Able was right. The newcomer was a teenager who looked to be about 14 or so (meaning that he was probably 16 in reality), with dark hair tied back behind him. Red couldn't really see his hairstyle because of the green hooded cloak he was wearing. He appeared to be wearing a pretty simple chain mail shirt with a faded red gambeson on underneath. He pulled back his hood, revealing a somewhat unsure face and a braid that went back almost to shoulder length.

"Heh, I don't think we've seen you around here before," said Winter, leaning forwards on his pole-axe. He spoke in Russian quite deliberately, even though Red knew he could speak English perfectly well. It was always a test a first timer had to pass: could they speak the language.

"No," replied the challenger in reasonably good dialect, "I'm around the late fifties and I heard about this place from an info broker. I thought I'd come down here and take a look. My name's Minnow."

"So then, Minnow," began Winter, "Do you think you can last two minutes in the ring against me?"

"I can try," replied Minnow with a wry grin. "So if I win I get 1500 Col then?"

"Yep, 1000 plus Firemane's chip in of 500," affirmed Winter.

"Cool." Minnow took a kite shield and Nordic style arming sword from his inventory. Seeing that Minnow was taking the challenge, Winter straightened up and tapped out a duel request. Minnow accepted and took up a position on the opposite side of the small ring.

Red watched with interest as Minnow adopted an opening stance he hadn't seen before. Most shield users opted to hold their shield directly in front of them, with their sword or other weapon held in a thrusting posture. Minnow was instead holding his shield almost parallel to his own body. It was angled to cover him, but only slightly. Meanwhile he held his sword arm bent back behind his head, but held in a relaxed way. There was something about Minnow's posture that implied that he had some real experience with this kind of fighting.

Red wasn't sure why, but the newcomer had especially aroused his interest. He watched with some anticipation as the timer counted down and the two opponents faced each other. "How long do you think he'll last?" asked Able in English (the language the two of them liked to use for casual speech), "Thirty seconds?"

"I don't know," mused Red, "he seems pretty confident to me. I'll give him a minute, maybe a bit more."

"50 Col?"

"You're on."

As the timer reached zero Winter thrust immediately forwards with his pole-axe. It looked as if Minnow was going to get a rough welcome. However, he surprised everyone by keeping a cool head and moving his shield to block the attack. More than that, he moved the shield and his whole body so that Winter's attack was pushed away behind him. As the thrust past harmlessly away, Minnow's target was suddenly wide open, and he lashed out with his sword. He made sure to turn his whole body into the swing, and at that point Red was sure that Minnow knew exactly what he was doing. He got a hit on Winter's right shoulder, then pulled back, returning to his opening stance.

There was a few brief seconds of silence, and then everyone cheered. It had been a quick response, and while it hadn't done much damage, a hit was a hit.

Winter quickly got a hold of himself though, and attacked again. This time he was more conservative, and knocked Minnow's attempted counter strike away with the butt end of his weapon. But still, he hadn't landed a hit on the boy.

Next Winter tried a feint to one side before slashing in the other direction, but Minnow managed to duck the slash despite having moved to block the feint. He was quick on his feet this one.

Before Winter could attack again Minnow tried to launch an attack of his own, aiming for Winter's shoulder. It was a gutsy move against an opponent who was so much bigger than him, and it didn't really pay off all that much, as Winter blocked it easily.

The timer had only thirty seconds to go, and if Winter was going to win, he needed to do it now. He hurled himself towards the much smaller Minnow, who jumped to the right and kept clear of Winter's body. He did not however keep clear of the end of his pole axe, which struck him in the forehead and floored him. Surprisingly the damage didn't seem to be very high, but now Minnow was down on the ground.

Winter stabbed at him but he blocked a little clumsily with his shield. Impressively Winter managed to hook the shield out of the way. Minnow defended with his sword next, but that was also knocked aside in turn. Before Winter could land the finishing blow however, the timer sounded, and the duel ended.

The small crowd all looked on in surprise for several seconds before giving a rather loud round of applause. Grinning widely Winter helped Minnow to his feet. "You are one slippery thing," he laughed.

"That's where I got my name," said Minnow, returning the smile.

"Well, I guess I owe you 1500 Col then," said Winter.

Minnow frowned at that. "I did make it to two minutes," he admitted, "but only just. If this were a real fight I'd have lost; actual battle isn't timed."

"That doesn't mean squat!" boomed Winter, "The bet was to the two minutes, and you lasted two minutes. So, the money is yours." Minnow looked a little uncomfortable as Winter sent him 1500 Col via the trade menu. He hoped off the platform and was greeted by several fist bumps, high fives and slaps on the back.

"So," began Winter from his place, "If the new kid can do it, can any of you?" In response to this several players went up eagerly, as if Minnow's victory had completely erased any caution from the two previous defeats.

Red beckoned to Able and began making his way towards where Minnow was looking a little relieved to have the attention focused less on him and more on the challenge again. "Hey," he said, tapping the dark haired player on the shoulder. Minnow turned to look at Red, and a flicker of surprise crossed over his face. Red put it down to the armour (it was an extremely rare drop after all).

"Hi," replied Minnow.

"I'm Red and this is my mate Able," he explained, jerking a thumb in his friend's direction. "Who by the way owes me fifty Col," he added with a sly grin.

"You bastard," grumbled Able, opening up his menus to make the trade.

"Anyway," continued Red, "That was a pretty good fight there; you really looked like you knew what you were doing. You don't happen to do martial arts or something IRL do you?"

Minnow shook his head. "I've watched historical fencing a few times and read a few pointers but no, I'd never actually done it before I came here," he said. "Humanoid style fighting is probably my favourite kind though, so I tend to favour it when I practice."

"This is your first time at a meet up of the Bears?" asked Able, still frowning irritably as he pressed the 'send' button.

"Yeah," nodded Minnow. "I'm a solo player most of the time and usually keep to myself, but I was curious."

"Solo huh? That must be pretty rough," said Red.

Minnow looked a little gloomy at that. "Yeah it can be. Problem is I can't speak English and my Japanese is kind of terrible, so most people won't party with me. I came here hoping I could find some people I could actually talk to," he sighed.

"Well you came to the right place that's for sure," said Red. "You gotta be able to speak Russian in order to be a part of the Black Bears."

"So, this is a Pact* right?" clarified Minnow.

*A Pact is a group of Guilds that have all formed a sort of large scale alliance with each other

"Yeah, all the Russian speaking Guilds are in it," said Able. "You'd actually be the first solo player we've ever had. If you wanna stick around that is."

"Don't see why not," said Minnow with a shrug, "I haven't got any better place to be this time of night."

"Great!" cried Red, "Then how about you come over to the bar and get a drink with us? The night my friend is young!"

"So, is everyone here actually Russian?" asked Minnow, looking over to where the main bulk of the guys were having a competition to see who could still walk in a straight line, after having worked up ten stacks of the drunk debuff (the maximum number possible before it knocked you out).

"Nah," replied Red, idly flipping a small metal shuriken between his fingers. It was a keep sake of his he'd picked up on the fifteenth floor. "Since SAO only got a launch in America and Japan, most of us are Russians who've moved to Canada or the States. Yours truly spent about eight years there before my family packed up and left for Canada. I've been back several times to visit relatives over the years, but never for very long. Where are you from?"

"Oh, nowhere exactly," replied Minnow, gazing idly at the small skin of white foam that floated on surface of his drink. "I speak a bit of several languages, but Russian's the only one I'm really any good with. I kind of stink at picking up new ones," he added, with a shrug that dismissed the issue.

"Must make life in SAO pretty tough at times," commented Red.

"Yeah, but hey, I'm no Lonely Blade; I manage," replied Minnow. Red found himself frowning at that. "What?" asked Minnow, confused by his reaction.

"Oh, nothing really," said Red, waving his hand, "It's just that I actually met the Lonely Blade, about a week and a half ago. He saved my ass after I got stuck in a dungeon on floor 54. Ha! Some sightseeing trip that turned out to be."

"What was he like?" asked Minnow, turning to giving Red increased attention now.

"About your age," said Red, "Blonde hair, blue eyes, long black cloak, mostly like the stories. He seemed kinda, off though, a bit like he was trying to be extra reserved about everything. He spoke Russian pretty dam well though," added Red, with a grin.

"Really?" asked Minnow.

"Yeah, it was almost better than mine at some points. Still, he had this sad look in his eyes at the end," Red added absentmindedly. That kid had made him feel more than a little bit uncomfortable.

"Well, I suppose there must be something up if you choose to wander around all the time by yourself," grunted Minnow.

"Guess so," agreed Red.

Most of the time mid-level players thought of the Frontliners as far away and not really connected to their lives, much like a politician or celebrity. People had their favourites and everyone liked to hear the latest news about what was happening up there, but no one really felt that they were in the same world as them. The Frontlines and their days of constant peril seemed a whole lifetimes away from the more casual grinding and questing that made up the lower levels. The players here were those who chose to take their time and keep a wide safety margin. Very few of them could stomach the idea of fighting on the cutting edge.

"So what exactly is your story Red, in regards to SAO?" asked Minnow suddenly, dislodging Red from his train of thought. "I mean, you've told me a bit about yourself from beforehand but, what have you been up to over the last two years?" he clarified.

Red took a long drink of his Blackwater Ale (which tasted more like cola than ale) before answering. "When everything went to hell on the first day Able and I freaked out pretty good. Neither of us went outside at all for the first month. Whenever we thought about going out some story would come back about the latest spree of deaths and that idea was out the window. But, after the First Floor Boss was cleared and the Frontlines started to pick up momentum, we picked ourselves up off our asses and got started.

"We didn't rush though; "plenty of time" we told ourselves. We just figured that y'know, the Frontlines would slow down pretty soon and we'd catch up." He grinned and shook his head, "spoiler alert, they did not."

"So you've been behind ever since then?" asked Minnow, rolling his now empty glass back and forth between his hands.

Red nodded. "Not for much longer though," he added, "Me and the guild have been picking up the pace lately. We figure it's about time we caught up and helped out a bit y'know?"

Minnow nodded, examining the minor motion blur that the drink had cast over his hand. "I'd like to be able to do that but well, you know how it is," he said, blinking a few times and looking at Red directly.

Red did know. Most solo players in SAO progressed only slowly, since they needed to keep the biggest safety margin possible. If they screwed up in the field they had no one to bail them out: they were dead, simple as that. It was why there were so few solo players around. It amazed Red that there was even one on the front lines, never mind three.

"So you've been going since the start then?" enquired Red with a raised eyebrow, shifting his spot in his chair to face Minnow properly. Both had finished their drinks, so the outdoor bar was of very little interest now.

"Not quite," admitted Minnow, "I didn't start until after I got over the initial shock of things. I spent the first two days worrying my parents were gonna rip me out and, well, I'd have been RIP then wouldn't I?" Red shook his head and chuckled; both at the poor taste in humour, and at the poor use of the colloquialism. Still grinning from the other's reaction Minnow continued, "I spent the rest of the first week practicing with my starting items. I probably could have gone out after just two days of that but well, I was a bit of a chicken. I've been grinding away almost every day since really."

"You never thought about joining a guild?"

"Oh yeah I thought about it," nodded Minnow earnestly, "But none of the parties I ever worked with seemed to have enough patience to work with me for very long. I've never managed to make any real long term contacts."

Red scratched his chin thoughtfully. "What level are you exactly?" he asked.

"57," said Minnow, unable to keep a hint of pride out of his voice. It wasn't too bad for a soloer at this point in the game.

"All right." Red pushed back his stool and stood up. "Me and the rest of the Blood Dragoons are going to hit the dungeon on Floor 38 tomorrow morning at 9:30. You can come meet up with us in the town square if you want. We'll see if you really are as hard to work with as you say you are."

Minnow bolted out of his seat so fast that it almost fell over. "S-Seriously?" he stammered. "I'd love to! Uh, I mean, yeah, that sounds okay." Red laughed and shook his head. The little guy was a bit of a character.

"Now, if you'll excuse me," said Red, looking over his shoulder to where Able had just run into one of the courtyard walls, "I need to get that idiot to a bed for the night. I'll see tomorrow, Minnow." Red turned and trotted over to his friend's side.

"When we get back to the real world you're gonna end up dying if you keep these drinking habits," he muttered.

"Ah shut up!" snapped Able, taking a joking swing at Red's head. Red didn't even bother to duck as the blow had been aimed a fair distance too far to the right.

"Case and point," he grinned, before leading Able away.

Minnow watched the two of them go in a contemplative silence. He hadn't done something like this in ages. _Am I really going to go through with it?_ he wondered, as he nimbly picked his way through the jostling mass of taller players.

As the dark haired boy came out into the lamp lit streets of Obrea he stopped to let the cool air tingle on his cheeks. "Why not?" he asked aloud, "It sounds like it might be fun." One thing was for sure though: the dozens of nervous visions he'd had of tonight, had been very far from the truth. Looking up at the two crescent moons above him, Minnow couldn't help grinning.


End file.
